"You turned white when you first saw her. Alan Rush looked just like that. Now he is mad about her." "I am not Alan Rush, nor any other boy of twenty-five. The man you have elected to marry, and who is not half good enough for you, as I have told you many times, is a seasoned person past middle age, my dearest. I could not go off my head over a pretty face if I tried. My day for that is long past." He spoke vehemently. "You never looked at me like that." "Doubtless my pallor was due to some such unromantic cause as an extremely bad dinner." "I have seen that look several times. Alan Rush is not the only one. And Helena is no doll. She has every fascination." "Possibly. Shall we go for our walk? I am most anxious to see those old houses and graves." He did not offer to kiss her. She was too proud to take up woman's usual refrain. She put on her hat, and they left the hotel, and walked toward the town. "I believe the cemetery comes first," she said. "I have made inquiries. We can see the town from there, and go on afterward--if you like." "Of course I like. How good of you to wait for me! I know you have been longing for the town which I am convinced is a part of your very personality." "Yes, I have been longing. I don't care much about it this morning." "Which of your heroines is buried in the cemetery?" "Benicia Ortega, La Tulita, and some of aunt's old friends." "You must certainly write those old stories. I often think of them." "Nothing that you say this morning sounds like the truth." "My dear girl! I am dull and stupid after a sleepless night. And the night after you left I sat up until two in the morning writing important letters." "I think it was disloyal of Helena." "I must rush to her defence. She did not know until the end of the evening who I was. She took me for one of the several Easterners who arrived to-day. Two of them brought letters to her father from Mr. Forbes. One was the son of an old friend. As her father presented me--" Magdalena faced about. "And you did not tell her? You did not speak of me?" "I am going to be perfectly frank, knowing how sensible you are. I had a desperate flirtation with your friend, as desperate and meaningless as those things always are; for it is merely an invention to pass the idler hours of society. There was nothing else to do, so we flirted. It added to the zest to keep her in ignorance of my identity. It was a silly pastime, but better than nothing. I should far rather have been in bed. If I could have talked to you, it would have been quite another matter." Magdalena hurried on ahead. He had the tact not to accelerate his own steps. After a time she fell back. She said,-- "What is this 'flirtation,' anyhow? I have heard nothing but 'flirtation' all winter, and I heard a good deal of it last summer. But I have not the slightest idea what it means. What do you do?"