She was in the same mood during breakfast, and for all that long and happy day. She strove, in a hundred ways, to blot out the memory of pain she had caused him--strove, by her present tenderness, to cover up past moments of petulance or anger. Yet there was in it all such a striving, such a sense of trying to do that which should have come naturally, without any striving, that even the good captain, simple gentleman though he was, looked at her more than once in surprise, and wondered what Comethup thought. But Comethup was blissfully happy, and only found time to bitterly accuse himself more than once of having been unjust in his thoughts toward her. A second completely happy day followed that first one, and at the end of it he walked home with her to her house, lingering with her until the last moment to put off their parting. As they walked slowly under the great trees toward the balcony, a man came strolling toward them, with the glow of the cigarette he was smoking making a little point of light in the darkness. The girl had had both hands locked on Comethup's arm; she took the hands quickly away when they came face to face with Brian. He stopped, pulled off his hat with a flourish, and laughed. "I've been dreaming of romantic things," he said; "and lo and behold! I step suddenly--an intruder, I fear--into the very heart of romance itself. Happy lovers wandering in the starlight! Why, all the dreams I have dreamed and all the poor verses I have scribbled are as nothing to this; I have yet to learn the very first trick of my trade--love at first hand. And who shall teach me?" He glanced, with a sort of comical wistfulness, at the girl, who had drawn a little away from Comethup, and whose eyes were fixed on the ground. "Oh, you'll find some one to teach you, I've no doubt," said Comethup, with a laugh. "What has brought you wandering here?" "I came to see an old friend--'Linda," responded Brian. "Will she forgive me if I suggest that, in these rose-coloured days, she is apt to forget a poor fellow who was once her friend?" The girl looked up quickly, with a flush on her face. "Indeed, I forget none of my old friends," she said. "Why should you think that?" Comethup, looking at her, saw in her eyes an appeal to the man, a look half of defiance and of a resolution to keep firmly to her promise of the previous day--half of a pity for him, and a fear of him or of what he might say. "Well, perhaps I don't quite think that," said Brian carelessly. "Only it's been my experience through life to find that one is so easily forgotten, so easily thrust out of remembrance, when one is penniless and--helpless. You think that unjust, perhaps? There, I'm sorry. I'm in a wrong mood to-night, and I've waited so long in this infernal garden, on the chance of seeing an old friend, that I've got the horrors. Good-night, happy lovers!"