"I think I may promise to secure consent," Huntington assured him. "Come on, Phil," Billy seized his chum's arm. "Let's go out in the garage and practise on those cars." Marian disappeared within doors to quiet the apprehensions of her mother-heart; Thatcher drew a chair beside Hamlen's to discuss the war, which now assumed a personal interest; Huntington and Merry quietly slipped down the steps, and wandered through the formal garden to their favorite retreat. "Why not watch the sunset from the water-garden?" Merry asked. The sun set in proper and glorious fashion into the sea at the foot of the avenue of maple trees, but the successful completion of its task did not suggest to the lovers a return to the house. Still they sat on the curiously-cut stone seat, and told each other that story which is older than the stone, and which was first told long before Benten became the Goddess of Love. Twilight deepened into dusk, and stirred within Huntington's mind a quotation from a kindred soul who felt as he felt, but who couched his thought in more fitting words than he himself could choose: "I wonder if you love to listen to the music of the night as I do, dear heart,--with its space, its mystery, its uplift of spirit? It is written in the key of the ideal and in the cadence of the divine." "Oh, Monty!" she murmured contentedly, "I do; for it is written in the key of happiness, and in the cadence of my beloved's voice!" "You forgive me for being too old?" "Not too old, my darling,--just born too soon!"