important. It did not come into her life; for at that moment she
did not know what her life was.

"And so," said Jack Meredith, finishing his story, "we have begun
badly--as badly as the most romantic might desire."

"Yes, theoretically it is consoling. But I am sorry, Jack, very
sorry. I hate quarrelling with anybody."

"So do I. I haven't time as a rule. But the old gentleman is so
easy to quarrel with, he takes all the trouble."

"Jack," she said, with pretty determination, "you must go and say
you are sorry. Go now! I wish I could go with you."

But Meredith did not move. He was smiling at her in evident
admiration. She looked very pretty with that determined little pout
of the lips, and perhaps she knew it. Moreover, he did not seem to
attach so much importance to the thought as to the result--to the
mind as to the lips.

"Ah!" he said, "you do not know the old gentleman. That is not our
way of doing things. We are not expansive."

His face was grave again, and she noticed it with a sudden throb of
misgiving. She did not want to begin taking life seriously so soon.
It was like going back to school in the middle of the holidays.

"But it will be all right in a day or two, will it not? It is not
serious," she said.