"Good," he returned, treating me to one of his quizzical smiles. "It is
delightful to know that someone is happy."

Manoel had removed my unopened newspapers from the bedroom, placing
them on the breakfast table on the south veranda; and I had propped the
_Mail_ up before me and had commenced to explore a juicy grapefruit
when something, perhaps a faint breath of perfume, a slight rustle of
draperies, or merely that indefinable aura which belongs to the
presence of a woman, drew my glance upward and to the left. And
there was Val Beverley smiling down at me.

"Good morning, Mr. Knox," she said. "Oh, please don't interrupt your
breakfast. May I sit down and talk to you?"

"I should be most annoyed if you refused."

She was dressed in a simple summery frock which left her round, sun-
browned arms bare above the elbow, and she laid a huge bunch of roses
upon the table beside my tray.

"I am the florist of the establishment," she explained. "These will
delight your eyes at luncheon. Don't you think we are a lot of
barbarians here, Mr. Knox?"

"Why?"

"Well, if I had not taken pity upon you, here you would have bat over a
lonely breakfast just as though you were staying at a hotel."

"Delightful," I replied, "now that you are here."