he said reflectively. He would not listen to what they said, though
he could have heard easily enough, had he so desired. He watched
Miss Cheyne and her lover, however, as they slowly walked the length
of the garden--she, holding a fan in the Spanish fashion, to shield
her face from the setting sun; the man, hat in hand, and carrying
himself with a sort of respectful grandeur, characteristic of his
race. At the end of the garden they paused, and Whittaker smiled
cynically at the sight of the man's dark eyes as he looked at Miss
Cheyne. He was apparently asking for something, and she at last
yielded, giving him slowly, almost shyly, a few violets that she had
worn in her belt. Whittaker gave a curt laugh, but his eyes were by
no means mirthful.

Later in the evening Miss Cheyne came into his room.

"You have had a visitor," he said, in the course of their usual
conversation.

"Yes," she answered frankly; and Whittaker reflected that, at all
events, she knew her own mind.

He said nothing further upon that subject, but later he referred to
a topic which he had hitherto scrupulously avoided. He had passed
his life among a class of men who were not in the habit of growing
voluble respecting themselves.

"I think you take me for an Englishman," he said. "I am not. I am
an American."

"Indeed! You have no accent," replied Miss Cheyne; and, despite