There was another long pause before Phil said, "Well, I wouldn't be measuring up to that second notch if I asked you to break your promise to your father, and you wouldn't do it even if I did. So there's nothing more for me to say at present. But I'll ask this much. You'll keep the turquoise if we count it merely a friendship stone, won't you?" "Yes, I'll be glad to do that. And I'll weah it at the wedding if you want me to, as my bit of something blue. I'll slip it down into my glove." "Thank you," he answered, then added, after a pause: "And I suppose there's another thing. That yardstick keeps all the other fellows at a distance, too. That's something to be cheerful over. But you mark my words--I'm doing a bit of prophesying now--when your real prince comes you'll know him by this: he'll come singing this song. Listen." Picking up his guitar again, he struck one full deep chord and began singing softly the "Bedouin Love-song," "From the desert I come to thee." The refrain floated tremulously through the library window. "Till the stars are old, And the sun grows cold, And the leaves of the judgment Book unfold." It brought back the whole moonlighted desert to Lloyd, with the odor of orange-blossoms wafted across it, as it had been on two eventful occasions they rode over it together. She sat quite still in the hammock, with the bit of turquoise clasped tight in her hand. It was hard to listen to such a beautiful voice unmoved. It thrilled her as no song had ever done before. As it floated into the library, it thrilled Mary also, but in a different way; for with a guilty start she realized that she had been listening to something not meant for her to hear. "Oh, what have I done! What have I done!" she whispered to herself, dropping the book and noiselessly wringing her hands. She could hear voices on the stairs now. Eugenia and Betty were coming down, and Rob's whistle down the avenue told that he was on his way to join them. Too ashamed to face any one just then, and afraid that her guilty face would betray the fact to Phil and Lloyd that she shared their secret, she hurried out of the library and up to her room, where Joyce was rearranging her hair. In response to Joyce's question about her coming up so early in the evening, she said she had thought of something she wanted to write in her journal. But when Joyce had gone down she did not begin writing immediately. Turning down the lamp until the room was almost in darkness, she sat with her elbows on the window-sill staring out into the night.