"Honor Ward--an American. Awfully jolly! No end of an heiress! I've met her a good deal this year, and she was staying at the Hilliards' at the time of the accident. Awfully fond of Pixie, and a real good sort!" He laughed shortly.--"We _ought_ to go out together, for we are mentally in the same boat. She had intended to stay over the summer, but ... her romance has gone wrong too!" "Indeed!" Stephen was not interested in Miss Ward's romance, but he made no objection to the sending of a wire to the Liverpool office of the steamship company, and before evening the berth was secured and Stanor's departure definitely dated. "I'll spend the rest of the time with Pixie," was Stanor's first determination, but each hour that passed brought with it a recollection of some new duty which must needs be performed. One cannot leave one's native land, even for a couple of years, without a goodly amount of preparation and leave-taking, and the time allotted to Pixie dwindled down to a few hasty visits of a few hours' duration, when the lovers sat together in the peacock walk, and talked, and built castles in the air, and laughed, and sighed, and occasionally indulged in a little, mild sparring, as very youthful lovers are apt to do. "I must say you are uncommonly complacent about my going! A fellow hardly expects the girl he's engaged to, to be in such uproarious spirits just on the eve of their separation," Stanor would grumble suddenly at the end of one of his _fiancee's_ mirthful sallies, whereupon Pixie, her vanity hurt by his want of appreciation, would snap out a quick retort. "If I'm sad you want me to be glad, and if I'm glad you're annoyed that I'm not sad! There's no pleasing you! You ought to be thankful that I'm so strong and self-controlled. ... Would it make it easier; if I were hanging round your neck in hysterics?" "Oh, bar hysterics! But a tear or two now and then... Suppose it was Bridgie who was going instead of me?--would you be as strong and self-controlled?" "If Bridgie were going I'd ... I'd jump--" In the midst of her passionate declaration Pixie drew herself up, shot a frightened glance, and concluded lamely, "I'd ... be very much distressed!" "That's not what you were going to say. You were going to say that you'd jump into the water and swim after her, or some such nonsense. You can be perfectly cool and calm about _my going_, but when it comes to Bridgie--" "If it'll please you better, I'll begin to howl this minute! I don't often, but when I do, it seems as if I could never stop. I _thought_," Pixie added reproachfully, "when a girl was engaged the man thought her perfect, and everything she did, and she sat listening while he sang her praises from morn to night. But _you_ find fault--" "I don't call it finding fault to wish you would show more feeling! It's the best sort of compliment, if you could only see it."