"Oh, but--" began Phoebe. She had no hopes, such as she had cherished, against all reason, upon getting Ishmael's note that morning, of a moonlit walk home with him, but something in her shrank from the walk undertaken with Archelaus. He wrapped the shawl about her as she spoke. Phoebe could no more have resisted a man who had his mind made up than a frog can get away from a viper which has once sighted it, and she let herself be swathed without further protest. Good-byes were said, with careless affection on the part of Vassie, and kindliness from Judith and a pressure of the hand and a deep look from Blanche. "Good-night, little girl! You're going to be very happy, too, you know," said Blanche, who knew nothing about it, but felt it was a good thing to say. Phoebe and Archelaus, both tongue-tied now they were alone, set off through the moonlight and the soft air to the cliff path. It was a long time now since she had met Archelaus out of doors, as he had several times half-coaxed, half-bullied her into doing. Now she felt a constraint with him she had not previously, as though there were some portent in the simple act of seeing her home there had never been before. She had, of course, flirted with him in a very innocent way, if her methods had been a little cruder than Blanche's would have under the same circumstances. The repartee had been simple and the caresses nothing more than a slight touch on waist or arm, repulsed by her with more alarm than prudery. Phoebe was fonder far of Ishmael than of Archelaus; she told herself that she admired Ishmael more--he was so much the gentleman.... What she did not know was that a rebel thing in her, the thing for which poor facile, soft little Phoebe had been as much created as though she had been a field-mouse, responded to Archelaus because it felt he was so much the male. Phoebe had been safeguarded all her short life by her notions of gentility and by her fear, the fear, not of consequences, but, less base than that, the fear of actual passion, which is often implanted in very passionate girls as though to guard them till the time comes. When they reached the first stile Phoebe lifted her skirts and pattered up to it, stood poised upon its crest, and then, with a little gasp, yielded to Archelaus's strong arms as he seized her and swung her down bodily. "Such a lil' bit of a thing as you be," said Archelaus; "like a lil' cat in my arms, so soft and all." They went on, he leading and brushing away the tendrils of bramble and the tougher branches of furze across the narrow cliff-path. At each stile he lifted her, only now he picked her up as they approached and carried her right over them. At the last stile he held her instead of putting her down when they reached the further side. "Put me down, Archelaus," she whispered. He still held her, his hands beneath her armpits, so that they cupped the curve of her breast, her face just beneath his, her feet dangling.