All she said was, "There are things I can do for you that a lady couldn't." "Oh--don't--don't!" he cried. That was the one way she hurt him. "What are you going to do with me now?" said she. "I'm going to take you for a walk. We can't stay here." "Can you wait?" "I have waited." She ran away and stayed away for what seemed an interminable time. Then somebody opened the door and handed Rose in. Somebody kissed her where she stood in the doorway, and laughed softly, and shut the door upon Rose and Tanqueray. Rose stood there still. "Do you know me?" said she, and laughed. Somebody had transformed her, had made her slip her stiff white gown and dressed her in a muslin one with a belt that clipped her, showing her pretty waist. Somebody had taught her how to wear a scarf about her shoulders; and somebody had taken off that odious linen collar and bared the white column of her neck. "_She_ made me put it on," said Rose. "She said if I didn't, I couldn't wear the hat." Somebody, Rose's mistress, had been in Rose's secret. She knew and understood his great poem of the Hat. Rose took it out of the band-box and put it on. Impossible to say whether he liked her better with it or without it. He thought without; for she had parted her hair in the middle and braided it at the back. "Do you like my hair?" said she. "Why didn't you do it like that before?" "I don't know. I wanted to. But I didn't." "Why not?" Rose hid her face. "I thought," said she, "you'd notice, and think--and think I was after you." No. He could never say that she had been after him, that she had laid a lure. No huntress she. But she had found him, the hunted, run down and sick in his dark den. And she had stooped there in the darkness, and tended and comforted him. They set out. "_She_ said I was to tell you," said Rose, "to be sure and take me through the pine-woods to the pond." How well that lady knew the setting that would adorn his Rose; sunlight and shadow that made her glide fawn-like among the tall stems of the trees. Through the pine-woods he took her, his white wood-nymph, and through the low lands covered with bog myrtle, fragrant under her feet. Beyond the marsh they found a sunny hollow in the sand where the heath touched the pond. The brushwood sheltered them. Side by side they sat and took their fill of joy in gazing at each other, absolutely dumb. It was Tanqueray who broke that beautiful silence. He had obtained her. He had had his way and must have it to the end. He loved her; and the thing beyond all things that pleased him was to tease and torment the creatures that he loved. "Rose," he said, "do you think I'm good-looking?" "No. Not what you call good-looking." "How do you know what I call good-looking?" "Well--_me_. Don't you?" "You're a woman. Give me your idea of a really handsome man." "Well--do you know Mr. Robinson?" "No. I do not know Mr. Robinson."