One sees so quickly and so much, and it takes so long to tell! I had time to take him in from head to foot and to reflect that I liked him better, judging merely from his looks, than Punch or Alec Corbin, or even Judy herself had led me to believe I should. I had time to observe a deep sober preoccupation in both their faces; to see that he drew breath to speak, and to guess that he was going to say nothing but just her name. And then suddenly I cried out, heartily and rather loudly, “Hello!” for I had also had time to realize that I must make my presence known at once. They hadn’t come to see me. They couldn’t have expected to find me here unless they’d been to the cottage first, and if they’d done that they’d have been fairly in my field of vision all the way up. They both started galvanically at my voice. Then the man scowled in my direction. No kindlier word will do for it; it was a black scowl and nothing else. I think Judy said something admonitory to him under her breath. I realized, somehow, even in that moment of profound misunderstanding, that what I saw wasn’t the mere vexation of a pair of lovers who had found already appropriated the retreat they’d intended for their love-making. Judy came in at once, a curiously complicated look in her face--affection for me was a part of it--and gave me a brief kiss, expressive more than anything else of apology for their bad manners the moment before. She walked without a trace of a limp. Evidently she’d allowed her ankle to get well. “It’s perfectly great up here, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s great now that you’ve come and brought Bruce Applebury to make that call you promised,” I said, and held out a welcoming hand to him on the words. He didn’t come forward to take it, but remained as if rooted in the entrance to the summer-house. If ever I saw consternation written plain upon an open countenance, I saw it then. Judy patted my shoulder encouragingly, as one might pat a horse that was going to shy. “All wrong!” she said. “All wrong! We didn’t come up here to see you. We came because we had something to talk about and I said I knew a good, safely deserted place where we could do it.--And this isn’t Bruce, you know. Bruce has gone to town on an errand. This is his cousin, Bill Grant.” She must have felt me give the start she’d been expecting. “Shake hands, you two,” she commanded curtly. I felt she meant it, somehow, as a guarantee, and held out my hand again, and this time he came forward and took it, but still without a word. Then he sat down heavily on the circular seat that ran around the place. His face was shining with sweat, and he got out his handkerchief and mopped it. “You’re out of condition, Bill,” Judy remarked. “This life of crime is too much for you.” She sat down herself in a big hickory chair, straightened out her legs in front of her and looked thoughtfully at her feet. I take no blame for the ensuing silence. I can’t think yet of anything I could have said.