wouldn't go till I came!"

The color that had flooded her face at the sound of his voice faded
again. She was quite white as she asked quietly:

"How could you know I would stay?"

He laughed easily, settling himself confidently on the moss at her side.

"Because I hadn't paid you yet," he answered gaily. "Don't you think
that was clever of me, Wildenai?"

"I would rather you did not call me that," she told him coldly, "It
sounds irreverent." And she dropped her eyes, which had filled again
miserably, to the film of white in her lap. Then, with a pitiful attempt
to hurt him in return: "Of course you realize that I really don't know
much about you. I don't want you to think that I distrusted you exactly
- " she marvelled at herself that she could say such things to him, but
went recklessly on. "The check wasn't there, - and so, well, it seemed
wisest to wait. They said you were coming back, and I couldn't afford to
lose it; so I stayed. Just a matter of business, you see!" She finished
in a tone which, except for a suspicious tremble, was satisfactorily
disagreeable.

But Blair's armor, since his return, seemed proof against such thrusts
as she could give.

"Won't play Indian at all, then?" he retorted teasingly. "But of course
not! How could you when you happen to come from the other side of the
house? However," he continued whimsically, "there are such things as