presence, as though there were already an understanding between
them which she herself had established. She had asked him to be
her friend. That was only a pretty speech, perhaps; but she had
spoken of herself, and had hinted at her perplexities and her
loneliness, and he argued that while it was no compliment to be
asked to share another's pleasure, it must mean something when
one was allowed to learn a little of another's troubles.

And while his mind was flattered and aroused by this promise of
confidence between them, he was rejoicing in the rare quality of
her beauty, and in the thought that she was to be near him, and
near him here, of all places. It seemed a very wonderful thing
to Clay--something that could only have happened in a novel or a
play. For while the man and the hour frequently appeared
together, he had found that the one woman in the world and the
place and the man was a much more difficult combination to bring
into effect. No one, he assured himself thankfully, could have
designed a more lovely setting for his love-story, if it was to
be a love-story, and he hoped it was, than this into which she
had come of her own free will. It was a land of romance and
adventure, of guitars and latticed windows, of warm brilliant
days and gorgeous silent nights, under purple heavens and white
stars. And he was to have her all to himself, with no one near
to interrupt, no other friends, even, and no possible rival. She
was not guarded now by a complex social system, with its
responsibilities. He was the most lucky of men. Others had only
seen her in her drawing-room or in an opera-box, but he was free
to ford mountain-streams at her side, or ride with her under
arches of the great palms, or to play a guitar boldly beneath her
window. He was free to come and go at any hour; not only free to