"Yes, I knew," he said. He looked deep into her eyes for seconds, and then she felt him drawing her irresistibly to him. She yielded herself as driftwood yields to a racing flood, no longer caring for the interpretation of the riddle, scarcely remembering its existence; heard him laugh above her head--a brief, exultant laugh--as he clasped her. And then came his lips upon her own.... "You see, dear," he said later, a quiver that was not all laughter in his voice, "it is not so remarkably wonderful, after all, that I should know all about it, when you come to consider that I was there--there with you in the magic circle all the time." "You were there!" she echoed, turning in his arms. "But how was it I never knew? Why did I not see you?" "Faith, sweetheart, I think you did!" said Sir Roland. Then, at her quick cry of amazed understanding: "I wanted to teach you a lesson, but, sure, I'm thinking it's myself that learned one, after all." And, as she clung to him, still hardly believing: "We have found our paradise together, my Lady Una," he whispered softly. "And, love, there is no way back." * * * * * THE LOOKER-ON I "Oh, I'm going to be Lady Jane Grey," said Charlie Cleveland, balancing himself on the deck-rail in front of his friends, Mrs. Langdale and Mollie Erle, with considerable agility. "And, Mollie, I say, will you lend me a black silk skirt? I saw you were wearing one last night." He spoke with complete seriousness. It was this boy's way to infuse into all his actions an enthusiasm that deprived the most trifling of the commonplace element. He was the gayest passenger on board--the very life of the boat. Yet he had few accomplishments to recommend him, his abundant spirits alone attaining for him the popularity he everywhere enjoyed. Molly Erle, who with Mrs. Langdale was returning home after spending the winter with some friends at Calcutta, regarded him with a toleration not wholly devoid of contempt. He apparently deemed it necessary to pay her a good deal of attention, and Molly was strongly determined to keep him at a distance--a matter, by the way, that had its difficulties in face of young Cleveland's romping lack of ceremony. "Yes, you may have the skirt," she said with a generosity not wholly spontaneous, as he waited expectantly for a reply to his request. "Ah, good!" he said effusively. "That is a great weight off my mind. And may I have Number Ten on your programme?" "Are you going to dance?" asked Mrs. Langdale, with a half-suppressed laugh. He turned upon her, grinning openly. "No. Fisher says I mustn't. I'm going to sit out, dear Mrs. Langdale--a modest wall-flower for once. I hope you will all be very kind to me. Have you made a note of Number Ten, Molly--I mean, Miss Erle? No? But you will, though. Ah! Thanks, awfully! Here comes Fisher! I wish you would persuade him to do Guildford Dudley. I can't." He bounced off the rail and departed, laughing.