He suddenly dropped his eyes to the ground and there was a silence. The sleepy murmur of insects rose upon it. The sun, in an effort to penetrate the inclosure, scattered itself in intermittent flickerings of brilliant light that shifted in golden spots along the tree trunks or came diluted through the webbing of twigs and vine tendrils. It was still very hot and the balsamic odors of bay-tree and pine seemed to grow more intense with the passing of the hour. “You were such a quiet little thing up there,” Jerry went on, “working like a man in that garden of yours and never wanting to go anywhere. Things down here may have made you happy, but I sometimes wonder if they haven’t made you frivolous, too.” When Jerry ceased staring at her and began to talk in this familiar, half-bantering strain, she felt more at ease, less uncomfortable and conscious. She seized the opening with eagerness and said, smiling down at her little bouquet: “But you know I am frivolous. I love parties and pretty clothes and lots of money to spend, and all the good times going. I was that way at Foleys, only I didn’t have any of those things. I can be serious, too, if it’s necessary. When I haven’t got the things to be frivolous with, I can do without.” He stretched out his hand and plucked a long stalk of feather-headed grass. “Can you?” he said indolently. “Are you sure you’re not telling a little story?” “No, no, quite sure. I have two sides to my character, a frivolous one and a serious one. You ought to know that by now.” “Which have you shown to me oftenest?” He was peeling the stalk of its shielding blade of grass. “I don’t know. That’s for you to say. Perhaps it’s been an even division.” He looked up. She was smiling slightly, her dimple faintly in evidence. “And I suppose the dimple,” he said, “belongs to the frivolous side.” “Yes. Even my face has two sides; the frivolous one with the dimple and the serious one without.” “Let me see them,” he said. “Let me judge which of the two is the more attractive.” He leaned forward and with the tip of the long spear of grass, touched her lightly on the cheek. “Turn,” he commanded, “turn, till I get a good profile view.” She turned, presenting her face in profile, pure as a cameo against the leafy background. [Illustration: WITH THE TIP OF THE LONG SPEAR OF GRASS, HE TOUCHED HER LIGHTLY ON THE CHEEK] “That’s the serious side,” she said, raising her chin slightly, so that her curls slipped back, disclosing her ear. “And now for the frivolous,” he answered. “I don’t seem to know the serious side so well.” She turned her head in the other direction, her eyes down-drooped. He drew himself nearer to her over the ground, the grass spear in his hand. “And so this is the frivolous. Shouldn’t the dimple be here?” He touched her cheek again with the tip of the grass, and as he did so the dimple trembled into being. She looked at him slantwise, laughing, with something breathless in the laughter.