"Dear, please don't say such things!"

"I'm going to say 'em," insisted Camilla with malicious
satisfaction. "You've jeered at me because I'm tender-hearted
about men. Now my chance has come!"

Ailsa began patiently: "There were scarcely a dozen words
spoken----"

Camilla, delighted, shook her dark curls.

"You've said that before," she laughed. "Oh, you pretty minx!--you
and your dozen words!"

Ailsa Paige arose in wrath and stretched out a warning arm among
her leafless roses; but Camilla placed both hands on the fence top
and leaned swiftly down from the veranda steps,

"Forgive me, dear," she said penitently. "I was only trying to
torment you. Kiss me and make up. I know you too well to believe
that you could care for a man of that kind."

Ailsa's face was very serious, but she lifted herself on tiptoe and
they exchanged an amicable salute across the fence.

After a moment she said: "What did you mean by 'a man of _that_
kind'?"

Camilla's shrug was expressive. "There are stories about him."