"Do you really mean," cried Daphne with a fresh shock of excitement, "that except for just one little chance I might be lying here dead this very minute? Dead and all over, I mean? Tennis and parties and new hats and everything all over and done with? As dead and all over as--as Noah?" she gasped. "Yes," acknowledged the man. Solemnly for a moment in the poignant awe of it all the jaded worldly-wise face and the [156] eager ingenuous young face measured this matter of life or death in the depths of each other's eyes. Then for sheer woman-nature the girl edged a little bit nearer to the poor man who had almost killed her. And for sheer man-nature the man put his arm around the poor girl whom he had almost killed. It was sheer Nature's nature though that blew a strand of the girl's bright, fragrant hair across the man's lips. With a sound like a snarl the man edged off again. "Whew, but my nerves are jumpy!" he said. In the flare of the lantern light the scar on his face showed suddenly with extraordinary plainness, and as though a bit conscious of the livid streak he brushed his hand casually across his mouth and cheek bone. "Tell a fellow again," he said, "about this running away business. What's the game?" "It isn't a game at all," flared Daphne. "I tell you I'm running away!" [157] "But what about that stern parent of yours?" grinned the man. "My father is more interested in another lady!" cried Daphne. "He's all but forgotten my existence. Oh, of course I don't mean he's deserted me," she explained with hysterical humor. "It's merely that for the time being and for all time to come," she quickened suddenly, "I've _got_ to have a life of my own!" "It's an original idea," said the man. At the faint tinge of mockery in the words all the hot, unreasoning anger surged back into Daphne's heart again. "Oh, you needn't make fun of me!" she cried. "And you needn't try to stop me! I'm a Bretton, you know! And all the Brettons are wild! Oh, awfully wild! I read it in the paper! And I--I'm going to be the wildest of them all!" "Just exactly--how wild--are you planning to be?" asked the man. Simultaneously with the question he lifted the lantern and flashed it like a spot-light on the girl's elfish beauty, the damp skirt moulding her slender limbs, the bright disheveled hair slipping [158] out from the prim little tarn, the sailor-collared blouse dragged down just a little bit too far from the eager, unconscious young throat! "Just exactly--how wild--are you planning to be?" "Oh, as wild as _wild_!" gloated Daphne. "I'm going to have an aeroplane! I'm going to have a--a----" With an odd little laugh the man jumped to his feet, and held out his hand to Daphne. "Where I live," he chuckled, "aeroplanes grow on trees. You're just the little girl I'm looking for! Come along!" "Come along where?" laughed Daphne, with her hand already in his.