"I'm afraid you'll wilt," Raymond looked at the blooming creature beside him. "Funny, isn't it, how things turn out? I expected to go in August to--to that lady with whom you first saw me" (Joan looked divinely innocent); "but only yesterday she informed me that she had resolved to go abroad, and asked if it would make any difference to me. She's like that. Her procedure resembles jumping off a diving plank." "Well, does it make any difference?" Joan asked. "You bet it does! It makes me free to stay in town." "I'm afraid you'll wilt," Joan twinkled. "We must take precautions against that." Raymond looked deadly in earnest. The meetings of these two were now set, like clear jewels in the round of common days. They were not too frequent and they were always managed like chance happenings. Always there was a sense of surprise, a thrill of unbelievable good luck attending them; but there was, also, a growing sense of assurance and understanding. "I wonder," Joan said once, pressing hard against the shield that protected them, "I wonder if you and I would have played so delightfully had we been--well--introduced! Miss Jones and Mr. Black." "No!" Raymond burst in positively. "Miss Jones would have been enveloped in the things expected of Miss Jones, and Mr. Black would have been kept busy--keeping off the grass!" "Aren't you ever afraid," Joan mused on, "that some day we'll suddenly come across each other when our shields are left behind in--in the secret tower?" "I try not to think of it," Raymond leaned toward the girl; "but if we did we'd know each other a lot better than most girls and fellows are ever allowed to know each other," he said. "Do you think so?" Joan looked wistfully at him. "You see this isn't real; it's play, and I'm afraid Miss Jones and Mr. Black would be awfully suspicious of each other--just on account of the play." "And so--we'll make sure that shields are always in commission," Raymond reassured her. "In this small world of ours we cannot run any risks with Miss Jones and Mr. Black. They have no part here." "No, they haven't!" Joan leaned back. That subtle weakness was touching her; the aftermath of strained imagination. She was often homesick for Doris and Nancy--she was getting afraid that she might not be able to find her way back to them when the time came to go. "Poor little girl!" Raymond was saying over the table, and his words fitted into the tune the fountain sang--it was the same tune the fountain sang in the sunken room of long ago; all fountains, Joan had grown to think, sang the same lovely, drippy song. "I wonder just how brave and free a little girl it is?" Joan screwed up her lips. "Limitless," she whispered, daringly. "You're played out, child!" Raymond went on; "there are blue shadows under your eyes. I wish you'd let me do something for you."