"Well," says Miss Beresford, "listen to me." She stands well back from him this time, and, catching up the tail of her white gown, throws it negligently over her arm. "If you _must_ have--you know what!--at least you shall earn it. I will race you for it, but you must give me long odds, and then, if you catch me before I reach that laurel down there, you shall have it. Is that fair?" Plainly, from her exultant look, she thinks she can win. "A bargain!" says Desmond. "And, were you Atalanta herself, I feel I shall outrun you." "_So_ presumptuous! Take care. 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,' and you may trip." "I may not, too." "Well," moving cautiously away from him, "when I come to that branch there, and say one, two, three, you--will----_Now!_" At this, before he is half prepared, she cries, "one, two, three," with scandalous haste, and rushes away from him down the moonlit path. Swift and straight as a deer she flies, but, alas! just as the goal is all but reached, she finds the race is not to her, and that she is a prisoner in two strong arms! "Now, who was presumptuous?" says Desmond, gazing into her lovely face. Her head, with a touch of exhaustion about it, is thrown back against his chest; through her parted lips her breath is coming with a panting haste, born of excitement and her fruitless flight. He bends over her, lower, and lower still. She feels herself altogether in his power. "As you are strong, be merciful," she whispers, faintly. A warm flood of crimson has dyed her cheeks; her smile has faded; she struggles slightly, and then all in one moment Desmond becomes aware that tears have sprung into her eyes. Instantly he releases her. "Darling, forgive me," he says, anxiously. "See how your heart is beating now, and all for nothing! Of course I shall let you off your bargain. What do you take me for? Do you think I should make you unhappy for all the world could offer? Take those tears out of your eyes this instant, or I shall be seriously angry with you." Monica laughs, but in a rather nervous fashion, and lets her lover dry her eyes with his own handkerchief. Then she sits down with him upon a rustic seat close by, wishing to be quite mistress of herself again before encountering the glare of the drawing-room lamps and the still more searching light of her friends' eyes. For a full minute not a word is spoken by either of them She is inwardly troubled; he is downcast. Presently she rises with a little restless movement. "No, do not stir just yet," she says. "I only want to pick some of that syringa behind you, it is so sweet." Disinclined for action of any sort, he obeys her. She slips away behind him, and he sits there waiting listlessly for her return, and thinking, somewhat sadly, how small a way he has made with her, and that she is almost as shy with him now as on that day by the river when first they met.