“Why shouldn’t the girl jump about and enjoy herself if she chooses,” thought Ralph Pullen. “Elinor makes no allowances for condition or age, but would have everyone as prim and old-maidish as herself. I declare she gets worse each time I see her! A nice sort of wife she will make if this kind of thing goes on! But by Jingo! if we are ever married, I’ll take her prudery out of her, and make her--what? The woman who commences by pursing her mouth up at everything, ends by opening it wider than anybody else! There’s twice as much harm in a prude as in one of these frank open-hearted girls, whose eyes tell you what they’re thinking of, the first time you see them!” He had been strolling down the Digue as he pondered thus, and now found himself meeting the procession again. “Come and dance with me,” cried Harriet Brandt, who, apparently as fresh as ever, was still waving her branch of lanterns to the measure of her steps. He took her hand and tried to stop her. “Haven’t you had about enough of this?” he said, “I’m sure you must be tired. Here’s a little boy without a lantern! Give him yours to hold, and come for a little walk with me!” The touch of his cool hand upon her heated palm, seemed to rouse all the animal in Harriet Brandt’s blood. Her hand, very slight and lissom, clung to his with a force of which he had not thought it capable, and he felt it trembling in his clasp. “Come!” he repeated coaxingly, “you mustn’t dance any more or you will overtire yourself! Come with me and get cool and rest!” She threw her branch of lanterns to the boy beside her impetuously. “Here!” she cried, “take them! I don’t want them any more! And take me away,” she continued to Ralph, but without letting go of his hand. “You are right! I want--I want--rest!” Her slight figure swayed towards him as he led her out of the crowd, and across a narrow street, to where the road ran behind all the houses and hotels, and was dark and empty and void. The din of the voices, and the trampling of feet, and the echo of the songs still reached them, but they could see nothing--the world was on the Digue, and they were in the dusk and quietude together--and alone. Ralph felt the slight form beside him lean upon his shoulder till their faces almost touched. He threw his arm about her waist. Her hot breath fanned his cheek. “Kiss me!” she murmured in a dreamy voice. Captain Pullen was not slow to accept the invitation so confidingly extended. What Englishman would be? He turned his face to Harriet Brandt’s, and her full red lips met his own, in a long-drawn kiss, that seemed to sap his vitality. As he raised his head again, he felt faint and sick, but quickly recovering himself, he gave her a second kiss more passionate, if possible, than the first. Then the following whispered conversation ensued between them. “Do you know,” he commenced, with his head close to hers, “that you are the very jolliest little girl that I have ever met!”