"There is at least an hour between us and the rigid convention of luncheon," Huntington answered. "Shall we spend it on the piazza?" "It is much nicer beneath one of these great trees," she said, suiting her action to the word and sitting down upon the grass. "Come. Let us imagine that we're back in Bermuda again!" Huntington seated himself beside her, still rebellious that their moments together were passing so swiftly. He had wondered how she would appear to him when he saw her again, half hoping to find that the charm of the earlier setting had exaggerated her attractiveness, half dreading an awakening. This would have simplified his problem, but it would also have robbed his life of the richness which had entered it. Even though he saw his course plainly plotted out for him, there was a delicious joy in knowing that there existed one who had awakened in him that which alone is best and without which no man's experience can be complete. But his half-hope was not to be gratified nor his half-dread realized. The girl was different, but the intervening months had done their work well. She seemed older and more mature, yet this passing of the girl into womanhood had been accomplished without marring those characteristics which he had before admired. His eyes rested on her face longer than he realized, as these thoughts passed through his mind, but until she spoke he had no idea that she had noticed the closeness of his scrutiny. "Well," she said smiling, "do you approve?" He made no apology, for they understood each other too well, but instead accepted her question seriously. "Entirely," he replied with an air of sincerity which forced the color into her face. "The expression of the mouth, the tilt of the head, the sparkle in the eyes,--all is perfection. But you suggested that we imagine ourselves back in Bermuda. For myself, I should not dare to try it, for it could never be the same." "Should we want it to be?" she asked earnestly. "An experience repeated must have something added or it fails to satisfy. To be the same would bring disappointment. I've argued that all out with myself, so I'm sure I'm right." "Why should you have done that?" he demanded. "Because those were the most wonderful days I have ever known," she explained simply and without embarrassment. "I found myself wishing them back; then I realized that if I could have my wish gratified it wouldn't satisfy me. I was unhappy when I went down there for no reason in the world except that I couldn't seem to find my place. With all their love no one at home has ever understood me, and I had reached a point where I didn't understand myself. Then you gave me the chance to know Mr. Hamlen, and in what you said to him and to me I saw what happens when one has no anchorage. That was what had made me unhappy,--I was drifting horribly." "You concealed it well," Huntington said. "All the time we were together I never suspected that you had a care in the world."