"I will be ready in ten minutes," she promised, springing to her
feet.

The forgotten letters scattered like a fall of snow and the Captain
stooped quickly for them, hiding the flash of exultation in his
face. He thrust the letters rather hurriedly upon her.

"Good!... But need you wait for a _toilette_ when you are so--so
_ravissante_ now?"

He gazed with frank appreciation at the linen suit she was wearing,
but she shook her head laughingly at him. "To be interesting to a
foreign lady I must have interesting clothes," she avowed. "I shan't
be ten minutes--really."

"Then the car will be in waiting. I will give your name to the
chauffeur and he will approach you." He thought a minute, and then
said, quickly, "And I will leave a note for Madame Eversham at the
desk to inform her of your destination and to express my regret that
she is not here to accept the invitation." His voice was flavored
with droll irony. "In ten minutes--_bien sûr_?"

She confirmed it most positively, and it really was not quite
eighteen when she stepped out on the veranda, a vision, a positively
devastating vision in soft and filmy white, with a soft and filmy
hat all white lace and a pink rose. It is to be hoped that she did
not know how she looked. Otherwise there would have been no excuse
for her and she should have been summarily haled to the nearest
justice, with all other breakers of the peace, and condemned to good
conduct and Shaker bonnets for the rest of her life. The rose on the