Mr. Valentine Corliss threw himself back on the bench and laughed
aloud. "What a girl!" he cried. Then for a fraction of a second he
set his hand over hers, an evanescent touch at which her whole
body started and visibly thrilled.

She lifted her gloved hand and looked at it with an odd wonder;
her alert emotions, always too ready, flinging their banners to
her cheeks again.

"Oh, I don't think it's soiled," he said, a speech which she
punished with a look of starry contempt. For an instant she made
him afraid that something had gone wrong with his measuring tape;
but with a slow movement she set her hand softly against her hot
cheek; and he was reassured: it was not his touching her that had
offended her, but the allusion to it.

"Thanks," he said, very softly.

She dropped her hand to her parasol, and began, musingly, to dig
little holes in the gravel of the path. "Richard Lindley is
looking for investments," she said.

"I'm glad to hear he's been so successful," returned Corliss.

"He might like a share in your gold-mine."

"Thank heaven it isn't literally a gold-mine," he exclaimed.
"There have been so many crooked ones exploited I don't believe
you could get anybody nowadays to come in on a real one. But I