She laughed as she thought this, and then, conscious that she was growing cold, she cast a last look at the tower and roof of the McPherson place, and kissing her hand to it said softly: “Good-night, my dear. Sleep well. You will find an Irene _à la Rena_ next time we meet.” “Did you speak?” Rena asked, rousing up, and Irene replied: “I said ‘good-night, my dear,’ that’s all.” “Good-night,” Rena answered, drowsily, while Irene crept to bed and fell asleep with the thought in her mind: “This is the chance of my life and I shall improve it.” Meanwhile at the McPherson place there were half confidences exchanged between the young men and secret communings on the part of both. There had been comparative silence on the way home, Reginald keeping in advance of Tom, who tried in vain to keep up. “Looks as if he were running away from somebody,” Tom thought, and once he called out: “Don’t go so fast. There’s nobody behind you but me.” Rex did not answer, but kept on until they reached the house, when he went at once to his room. Tom stayed outside and lighting a cigar sat down upon the piazza to enjoy the beauty of the night and think of Rena’s eyes as they looked at him under the pines and feel in fancy the touch of her fingers as she brushed his sleeve and picked a pine-needle from his neck. “I believe she is coming to time,” he thought, “and if it were not for this infernal will business she’d soon be where I could speak again. But I know Rena. She’s got it in her little wilful head that she must study Rex, or some such nonsense. Then there is this confounded farce with Irene posing as Rena, and Rena as Irene, and I looking on and compounding a felony and beginning not to care after all my high and mighty protests against it. I don’t believe I want to break it up now, for, by George! Rex would go in strong for Rena, if he knew she was the one. I saw his eyes shine two or three times when she was talking, while Irene never moved him any more than a fly moves an elephant when it lights on him. I know what she is up to. She means to make him so much in love that when he finds his mistake he’ll stick to her, as he would, if he were half-way interested and thought she cared. That’s Rex. Poor Rex, I shall have to go down on my knees to him yet. I wonder if he has gone to bed.” Going to the door of Rex’s room he knocked and then entered unceremoniously. Rex was standing with his back to him removing his coat and vest and did not at once look round. “I won’t keep you up more than a minute,” Tom said, “I just wanted to know what you thought of the girls. You hurried home so fast I couldn’t ask you. Isn’t Irene a stunner?”