"Is _that_ your limit, Louis? If it is you will never disturb my peace of mind." He heard her laughing at the other end of the wire, delighted with her own audacity. He said: "Shall I call you up at one o'clock when I get into town?" "Try it. I may awake." "Very well then. I'll make them ring till daylight." "Oh, they won't have to do that! I always know, about five minutes before you call me, that you are going to." "You uncanny little thing! You've said that before." "It's true. I knew before you called me that you would. It's a vague feeling--a--I don't know.... And oh, Louis, it _is_ hot in this room! Are you cool out there in the country?" "Yes; and I hate to be when I think of you--" "I'm glad you are. It's one comfort, anyway. John Burleson called me up and asked me to go to Manhattan Beach, but somehow it didn't appeal to me.... I've rather missed you." "Have you?" "Really." "Well, I'll admit I've missed you." "Really?" Sure thing! I wish to heaven I were in town now. We would go somewhere." "Oh, I wish so, too." "Isn't it the limit!" "It is, Kelly. Can't you be a real god for a moment and come floating into my room in a golden cloud?" "Shall I try?" "_Please_ do." "All right. I'll do my god-like best. And anyway I'll call you up at one. Good night." "Good night." He went back to the girl waiting for him in the starlight. "Well," she said, smiling at his altered expression, "you certainly have recovered your spirits." He laughed and took her unreluctant fingers and kissed them--a boyishly impulsive expression of the gay spirits which might have perplexed him or worried him to account for if he had tried to analyse them. But he didn't; he was merely conscious of a sudden inrush of high spirits--of a warm feeling for all the world--this star-set world, so still and sweet-scented. "Stephanie, dear," he said, smiling, "you know perfectly well that I think--always have thought--that there was nobody like you. You know that, don't you?" She laughed, but her pulses quickened a little. "Well, then," he went on. "I take it for granted that our understanding is as delightfully thorough as it has always been--a warm, cordial intimacy which leaves us perfectly unembarrassed--perfectly free to express our affection for each other without fear of being misunderstood." The girl lifted her blue eyes: "Of course." "That's what I told Lily," he nodded, delighted. I told her that you and I understood each other--that it was silly of her to suspect anything sentimental in our comradeship; that whenever the real thing put in an appearance and came tagging down the pike after you, you'd sink the gaff into him--" "The--what?" "Rope him and paste your monogram all over him." "I certainly will," she said, laughing. Eyes and lips and voice were steady; but the tumult in her brain confused her.