just like a ride in the moonlight. I hate balls and dances
anyway, don't you? I think you were very wise not to go.''

Hope placed her hands on the back of the big arm-chair and looked
steadily at him as he stood where she could see his face in the
moonlight. ``You came back,'' she said, ``because they thought I
was crying, and they sent you to see. Is that it? Did Alice
send you?'' she demanded.

Clay gave a gasp of consternation.

``You know that no one sent me,'' he said. ``I thought they
treated you abominably, and I wanted to come and say so. That's
all. And I wanted to tell you that I missed you very much, and
that your not coming had spoiled the evening for me, and I came
also because I preferred to talk to you than to stay where I was.
No one knows that I came to see you. I said I was going to get
the fan, and I told Stuart to find it after I'd left. I just
wanted to see you, that's all. But I will go back again at
once.''

While he had been speaking Hope had lowered her eyes from his
face and had turned and looked out across the harbor. There was
a strange, happy tumult in her breast, and she was breathing so
rapidly that she was afraid he would notice it. She also felt an
absurd inclination to cry, and that frightened her. So she
laughed and turned and looked up into his face again. Clay saw
the same look in her eyes that he had seen there the day when she
had congratulated him on his work at the mines. He had seen it
before in the eyes of other women and it troubled him. Hope