"Of course; with your cool, amused poise, your absolute self-possession--and the half-disdainful sword-play of your wit--at my expense--" She halted beside the sea-wall, adorably mocking in her exaggerated gravity. "At your expense?" she repeated. "Why not? You have cost me something." "You said--" "I know what I said: I said that we might become friends. But even so, you have already cost me something. Tell me"--he began to listen for this little trick of speech--"how many men do you know who would not misunderstand what I have done this evening? And--do _you_ understand it, Mr. Hamil?" "I think--" "If you do you are cleverer than I," she said almost listlessly, moving on again under the royal palms. "Do you mean that--" "Yes; that I myself don't entirely understand it. Here, under this Southern sun, we of the North are in danger of acquiring a sort of insouciant directness almost primitive. There comes, after a while, a certain mental as well as physical luxury in relaxation of rule and precept, permitting us a simplicity which sometimes, I think, becomes something less harmless. There _is_ luxury in letting go of that live wire which keeps us all keyed to one conventional monotone in the North. I let go--for a moment--to-night. _You_ let go when you said 'Calypso.' You couldn't have said it in New York; I couldn't have heard you, there.... Alas, Ulysses, I should not have heard you anywhere. But I did; and I answered.... Say good night to me, now; won't you? We have not been very wicked, I think." She offered her hand; smooth and cool it lay for a second in his. "I can't let you return alone," he ventured. "If you please, how am I to explain you to--the others?" And as he said nothing: "If I were--different--I'd simply tell them the truth. I could afford to. Besides we'll all know you before very long. Then we'll see--oh, yes, both of us--whether we have been foolishly wise to become companions in our indiscretion, or--otherwise.... And don't worry about my home-arrival. That's my lawn--there where that enormous rubber-banyan tree straddles across the stars.... Is it not quaint--the tangle of shrubbery all over jasmine?--and those are royal poincianas, if you please--and there's a great garden beyond and most delectable orange groves where you and I and the family and Alonzo will wander and eat pine-oranges and king-oranges and mandarins and--oh, well! Are you going to call on Mr. Cardross to-morrow?" "Yes," he said, "I'll have to see Mr. Cardross at once. And after that, what am I to do to meet you?" "I will consider the matter," she said; and bending slightly toward him: "Am I to be disappointed in you? I don't know, and you can't tell me." Then, impulsively: "Be generous to me. You are right; I am not very old, yet. Be nice to me in your thoughts. I have never before done such a thing as this: I never could again. It is not very dreadful--is it? Will you think nicely of me?"