Lizzie tossed her head.

“Oh, he’s nobody,” she said.  “He’s just ben keepin’ company with me.”

“I had to, you see,” she explained after a pause.  “I was gettin’ pretty lonesome.  But I never forgot.”  Her voice sank lower, and she looked straight before her.  “I’d throw ’m down for you any time.”

Martin looking at her averted face, knowing that all he had to do was to reach out his hand and pluck her, fell to pondering whether, after all, there was any real worth in refined, grammatical English, and, so, forgot to reply to her.

“You put it all over him,” she said tentatively, with a laugh.

“He’s a husky young fellow, though,” he admitted generously.  “If they hadn’t taken him away, he might have given me my hands full.”

“Who was that lady friend I seen you with that night?” she asked abruptly.

“Oh, just a lady friend,” was his answer.

“It was a long time ago,” she murmured contemplatively.  “It seems like a thousand years.”

But Martin went no further into the matter.  He led the conversation off into other channels.  They had lunch in the restaurant, where he ordered wine and expensive delicacies and afterward he danced with her and with no one but her, till she was tired.  He was a good dancer, and she whirled around and around with him in a heaven of delight, her head against his shoulder, wishing that it could last forever.  Later in the afternoon they strayed off among the trees, where, in the good old fashion, she sat down while he sprawled on his back, his head in her lap.  He lay and dozed, while she fondled his hair, looked down on his closed eyes, and loved him without reserve.  Looking up suddenly, he read the tender advertisement in her face.  Her eyes fluttered down, then they opened and looked into his with soft defiance.

“I’ve kept straight all these years,” she said, her voice so low that it was almost a whisper.

In his heart Martin knew that it was the miraculous truth.  And at his heart pleaded a great temptation.  It was in his power to make her happy.  Denied happiness himself, why should he deny happiness to her?  He could marry her and take her down with him to dwell in the grass-walled castle in the Marquesas.  The desire to do it was strong, but stronger still was the imperative command of his nature not to do it.  In spite of himself he was still faithful to Love.  The old days of license and easy living were gone.  He could not bring them back, nor could he go back to them.  He was changed—­how changed he had not realized until now.

“I am not a marrying man, Lizzie,” he said lightly.

The hand caressing his hair paused perceptibly, then went on with the same gentle stroke.  He noticed her face harden, but it was with the hardness of resolution, for still the soft color was in her cheeks and she was all glowing and melting.

“I did not mean that—­” she began, then faltered.  “Or anyway I don’t care.”