“I certainly can’t go if I’m not asked.” “Think what you are saying to me, woman,” he answered. “In another moment I shall ask you if you love me, and then----” She turned to him, and put her hand in his. “Suppose you do ask me,” she said. Vickers held it, and bent his head over it, and laid it against his mouth, but he shook his head. “No,” he said, “I won’t. I have just one or two remnants of decency left, and I won’t do that.” He stopped: for Nellie had turned the horse down an unexpected road. “Where are you going?” he said. “Back to the house. You can’t sail without your things.” “My dear girl, I’ve spent half my life traveling without my things.” “Well, you aren’t going to do it any more,” she answered, and her tone had so domestic a flavor that he kissed her again. Plimpton met them in the hall, and Nellie lost no time. “Pack Mr. Vickers’s things at once, please,” she said, and would have passed on, but she was arrested by Plimpton’s voice. “_Whose_, Madam?” he asked; like many men of parts, he believed that to be puzzled and to be insulted are much the same thing. “Mine, Plimpton, mine,” said Vickers. “And just for once leave out as much of the tissue paper and cotton wool as possible. I’ve a train to catch.” “And tell my maid to pack something for me--as much as she can get into a valise; and tea at once, Plimpton.” Plimpton did not say that he totally disapproved of the whole plan, but his tone was very cold, as he said that tea was already served in the drawing-room. “Goodness only knows when we shall see food again,” Nellie remarked as she sat down behind the tea-kettle. “I can hardly catch my train, Nellie.” “No matter. We can drive over to the other line--nine or ten miles.” “It will be rather a long lonely journey back, won’t it?” “For the horse, you mean?” said Nellie. “Well, to tell the truth I don’t exactly know how the horse is going to get back and I don’t much care.” “Nellie,” said Vickers, and he laid his hand on her shoulder with a gesture that was almost paternal. “I can’t let you do this. You have no idea what a life it would be,--what it would mean to be the wife of a man who----” “I shall know very soon,” returned she irrepressibly. “But I have some idea what a life it would be to be left behind, and so I am afraid you must put this newly-found prudence of yours in your pocket, and make up your mind----” But she did not finish a sentence whose end was fairly obvious, for the door was thrown open in Plimpton’s best manner, and Emmons entered. He stopped on seeing Vickers, and stared at him with round eyes. “_You!_” he cried. “This is the last place I should have thought of looking for you.” “But does not a meeting like this make amends--” Vickers began lightly, but Nellie struck a better note with her cool: “I should think this would have been the most natural place to look. Tea, James?”