During luncheon Val, in sheer desperation, began to show some consciousness of Harry Wilbur's existence. Finding that Ethan seemed not to notice, she redoubled her friendliness and gayety. At last, "Let's go for a walk--you and me," she said, jumping up and going towards the dogwood thicket. Harry, nothing loath, strode after her. Mrs. Ball felt herself a diplomatist, and began to relax under Mr. Gano's unruffled courtesy. The little match-maker did not know that Val's high spirits went down like foam in a champagne-glass as soon as she was beyond the reach of her cousin's eyes. But she came back smiling and trailing great branches of white dogwood over her shoulder and down her sky-blue gown. She felt it must be pretty, but she got no assurance that Ethan caught the effect. Harry's ingenuous compliments only heightened her hidden wretchedness. The day was a dreary disappointment to the girl. Ethan's apparent satisfaction in it was the most disturbing element of all. Only once did she have a word with him alone, and then not by his arrangement. She left Mrs. Ball and Harry repacking their basket, of which almost nothing had been used, and ran down the bank to help Ethan to put the cushions back in the boat. "I suppose Julia told you her father was coming up to-morrow night?" "No. What for?" "He's chairman of our committee." "Don't say anything about my being here." "Really?" "Really." "All right. I wish he weren't coming, though." "Why?" said the girl, preparing to hear her own views set forth. "Well, you see, the trouble is, old Otway is getting very deaf; he's not really fit for public business any more, and nobody has the courage to tell him. Isn't it appalling the way people cling to things--to the things, too, that we're all forewarned will be taken from us if we stay here long enough?" She looked at him with a fresh sense of curiosity and wonderment. What a strange new note he put into life! Yet those others laughed and jested with him, and thought him one of themselves. He took off his jacket again. "I'll take care of that." She began to fold it. "What's in the pocket?" She put her hand in with a thrill of joy at her audacity, and brought out an old duodecimo of battered calf-skin. "Why, I remember this: it's one of those little volumes that you brought from Paris." "Did I have it with me--" "Yes. Have you gone on carrying it about ever since you first came to the Fort?" "I hadn't seen it for years till the other day. I can't think how it got among my things." "You've marked it up frightfully. Grandma would scold you if she saw that." "The book marked me, why shouldn't I mark the book?" "What does it say here?" He shook his head. "Please tell me." "I thought you had studied Latin." "Y--yes; I know what the words mean, but I don't know what the sentences mean. Do translate this little bit." "Nonsense! I might as well have it in English at once." "You don't like people to know what you read?"