Possibly Madeline sensed that he was cold to her charms at the moment.  She flashed a shrewd glance at him.

“You don’t like me as well to-day as you did last night,” she challenged.

Caught, Ted tried half-heartedly to make denial, but the effort was scarcely a success.  He had yet to learn the art of lying gracefully to a lady.

“You don’t,” she repeated.  “You needn’t try to pretend you do.  You can’t fool me.  You’re getting cold feet already.  You’re remembering I’m just—­just a pick-up.”

Ted winced again at that.  He did not like the word “pick-up” either, though to his shame he hadn’t been above the thing itself.

“Don’t talk like that, Madeline.  You know I like you.  You were immense last night.  Any other girl I know, except my sister Tony, would have had hysterics and fainting fits and lord knows what else with half the excuse you had.  And you never made a bit of fuss about your head, though it must have hurt like the deuce.  I say, you don’t think it is going to leave a scar, do you?”

He leaned forward with genuine concern to examine the red wound.

“I think it is more than likely.  Lot you’ll care, Ted Holiday.  You’ll never come back to see whether it leaves a scar or not.  See that bee over there nosing around that elderberry.  Think he’ll come back next week?  Not much.  I know your kind,” scornfully.

That bit into the lad’s complacency.

“Of course, I care and of course, I’ll come back,” he protested, though a moment before he had had not the slightest wish or purpose to see her again, rather to the contrary.

“To see whether there is a scar?”

“To see you,” he played up gallantly.

Her hard young face softened.

“Will you, honest, Ted Holiday?  Will you come back?”

She put out her hand and touched his.  Her eyes were suddenly wistful, gentle, beseeching.

“Sure I’ll come back.  Why wouldn’t I?” The touch of her hand, the new softness, almost pathos of her mood touched him, appealed to the chivalry always latent in a Holiday.

He heard her breath come quickly, saw her full bosom heave, felt the warm pressure of her hand.  He wanted to put his arm around her but he did not follow the impulse.  The code of Holiday “noblesse oblige” was operating.

“I wish I could believe that,” Madeline sighed, looking down into the water which whirled and eddied in white foam and splash over the rocks.  “I’d like to think you really wanted to come—­really cared about seeing me again.  I know I’m not your kind.”

He started involuntarily at her voicing unexpectedly his own recent thought.