He was silent. He had picked up his post and was glancing at the covers. She watched him nervously. He read the steamship company’s imprint on each, and then smiled queerly. She fancied that he was smiling at the thought of being once again away from such absurdities of civilization as lawn tennis. But suddenly his smile ceased. He allowed his eyes to stray in the direction that hers had taken a few hours earlier--over the green of the lawns, and the ballooning foliage on the outskirts of the park. He continued so for a long time, siffling an air between his lips, and tapping the large envelopes fitfully on his palm. She watched him, waiting for what was to come--he was going to say something to her, she felt--something in the way of breaking the news of his departure to her. She watched him. Suddenly his soft whistling ceased. He drew a long breath, and smiled still more queerly than before. At that instant he caught her eye. He gave a little start, saying with something of surprise in his voice: “What’s the matter? Why are you looking at me in that way?” She continued gazing at him in silence. And then he saw that her eyes had filled with tears even while they were on his face. “My dear girl, what’s the matter? Who has been saying what to you, and why?” he asked. She pointed to the envelopes in his hand. He glanced down at them, saying: “What--what’s the matter here?” She shook her head and then turned away, and he knew that her tears had begun to fall. In a moment he perceived all. She heard him laugh, and raised her head, trying to disguise her tears. She saw the smile that was on his face as he tore in two each unopened cover, and then tore the two in four, and the four into eight, tossing the fragments over the balustrade of the terrace on to the roof of a great pyramid bay below. The act was one of great untidiness, but she easily forgave him, garden worshipper and all though she was. She stretched a white hand across the table to him eagerly, and once again her eyes were moist. “My dear boy! My dear boy! You mean to stay?” she whispered. “Yes, I mean to stay,” he replied. CHAPTER XIV She waited for something to follow--something that would let her into the secret of his flinging away the fragments of the circulars for which he had written to the officials of the steamship companies. She would have liked to know that it was on her account he had abandoned whatever project of travel he had in his mind; but dear as the reflection that he had done it for her sake would have been, it would have brought with it a certain pang to feel that she was a brake upon his enterprises.