“Ran the guard,” he admitted.

“No!  Oh, dear, oh, dear!—­and I told you not to.  Philip! Philip!  Do you want to get shot?”

“Now you know very well I don’t,” he said, laughing.  “I spend every minute trying not to. . . .  And, Ailsa, what do you think?  A little while ago when I was skulking along fences and lurking in ditches—­all for your sake, ungrateful fair one!—­tramp—­tramp—­tramp comes a column out of the darkness!  ‘Lord help us,’ said I, ’it’s the police guard, or some horrible misfortune, and I’ll never see my Ailsa any more!’ Then I took a squint at ’em, and I saw officers riding, with about a thousand yards of gold lace on their sleeves, and I saw their music trudging along with that set of silver chimes aloft between two scarlet yaks’ tails; and I saw the tasselled fezzes and the white gaiters and—­’Aha!’ said I—­’the Zou-Zous!  But which?’

“And, by golly, I made out the number painted white on their knapsacks; and, Ailsa, it was the 3d Zouaves, Colonel Craig!—­just arrived!  And there—­on that hill—­are their fires!”

“Oh, Phil!” she exclaimed in rapture, “how heavenly for Celia!  I’m perfectly crazy to see Curt and Steve——­”

“Please transfer a little of that sweet madness to me.”

“Dear—­I can’t, can I?”

But she let him have her hands; and, resting beside him on the rail fence, bent her fair head as he kissed her joined hands, let it droop lower, lower, till her cheek brushed his.  Then, turning very slowly, their lips encountered, rested, till the faint fragrance of hers threatened his self-control.

She opened her blue eyes as he raised his head, looking at him vaguely in the dusk, then very gently shook her head and rested one cheek on her open palm.

“I don’t know,” she sighed.  “I—­don’t—­know—­” and closed her lids once more.

“Know what, dearest of women?”

“What is going to happen to us, Phil. . . .  It seems incredible—­after our vows—­after the lofty ideals we——­”

“The ideals are there,” he said in a low voice.  And, in his tone there was a buoyancy, a hint of something new to her—­something almost decisive, something of protection which began vaguely to thrill her, as though that guard which she had so long mounted over herself might be relieved—­the strain relaxed—–­the duty left to him.

She laid one hand on his arm, looked up, searching his face, hesitated.  A longing to relax the tension of self-discipline came over her—­to let him guard them both—­to leave all to him—­let him fight for them both.  It was a longing to find security in the certainty of his self-control, a desire to drift, and let him be responsible, to let him control the irresponsibility within her, the unwisdom, the delicate audacity, latent, mischievous, that needed a reversal of the role of protector and protected to blossom deliciously into the coquetry that she had never dared.