"I don't think I did," said Ann. "Not?"--chidingly. "Oh, Miss Lovell, I can't believe that! Any nice-minded girl--I'm sure, if it had been me I should have fainted out of pure shame at finding myself in a man's arms--without a _peignoir_!" "Well, that was just it, you see. I _had_ fainted. So"--the corners of her mouth trembling in spite of herself--"I wasn't able to put on my _peignoir_." "I see." Miss Caroline looked slightly relieved. "Then you didn't really know any more about it than one does when having a tooth out under gas? What a good thing! Dear me! What a good thing! And I'm sure Mr. Coventry will try to forget all about it. Any gentleman would. Really, such a--a contretemps makes one feel one ought almost to be fully clothed for bathing, doesn't it?" She hopped up like a hungry little bird that has just been fed and flitted across the room to talk to Mrs. Carberry, and Ann wondered dryly if she were confiding in the M.F.H.'s wife particulars of the kind of costume she deemed suitable to the occasion when drowning. Brett Forrester took her vacated seat at Ann's side. "I'm really very much obliged to Coventry," he remarked, by way of opening the conversation. "Are you?" she replied innocently. "What for?" "Why, for saving you for me, of course. I couldn't possibly have got there in time myself. And I don't like losing my belongings"--placidly. She stared at him. "If you're referring to me," she said aloofly, "I'm not your 'belongings.'" His bright blue eyes flashed over her, and for a moment his face seemed to wake up as he responded swiftly: "But you will be--some day. So"--with a resumption of his former placidity--"as I said, I'm very much obliged to Coventry for saving you for me." "Brett, don't be so ridiculous! It isn't even funny to make jokes like that," she answered with some impatience. He remained quite unperturbed. "I didn't intend to be funny. And I'm not joking. I'm perfectly serious." "Then you were never more mistaken in your life." "Mistaken?"--with childlike inquiry. "In what you said just now." Forrester's eyes danced wickedly. "I say such a lot of things," he complained. "If you can specify which particular thing, now?" "You know which I mean, perfectly well," protested Ann indignantly. "That I--that you--what you said just now about 'belonging'!" She brought it out with a rush. "I meant it." They were alone in the room. The others, conducted by Robin, had all trooped out to inspect what Lady Susan gaily insisted upon referring to as the "Cottage Poultry Farm," and distantly through the open window came the fluttered cackling of the White Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds, resentful of this unaccountable intrusion of strangers into their domain. Brett laid his hand suddenly on Ann's arm and thrust his face near hers. "I meant it," he repeated, and his voice roughened oddly. "I've meant it ever since the day I found you fast asleep in the hammock."