“Oh, Graydon, that’s splendid of you!  I’ve been sighing, ’My kingdom for a horse,’ ever since I came here.  But he’s no peace-offering.  I forgave you when I saw your headlong plunge into the lake.  You went into it like a man, while I flopped in so awkwardly that all said I had fallen overboard.”

“Shake hands, then.”

She sprang up and joined hands with him in frank and cordial grasp, saying, “It’s all right now, and Mary and Henry will understand us as well as we do ourselves.”

“One condition:  you will let me ride with you?”

“When you are disengaged, yes,” was her arch reply, “and I’ll prove that on horseback I can be as good a comrade as a man.”

“Well, if something I’ve dreamt of is true I never saw such acting,” thought Henry Muir.  Then he said, quietly, “Madge, how did you find the child so surely and quickly?”

“That accounts for my awkwardness somewhat,” she replied, laughing.  ("How happy she looks!” he thought.) “I never took my eyes from the spot where I had last seen the child sink, and I had to do everything as if my head was in a vise.  Don’t let us talk about it any more.”

“No, nor about anything else,” said Mary, rising.  “I’m proving a fine nurse, and am likely to be lectured by the doctor to-morrow.  You men must walk.  Here is Madge flushed, feverish, and excited about a horse.  Brain-fever will be the next symptom.”

An hour later Madge was sleeping quietly, but the happy flush and smile had not left her face.  She felt that she had at last scored one point.  Oh, that she could have more time!

“Jupiter!” muttered Graydon, as he descended the stairs, “her talk makes a fellow’s blood tingle.”

Miss Wildmere had just entered with Arnault, and Graydon asked, “Are you not going to give me one dance this evening?”

“Yes, two, if you wish,” she replied, sweetly.

He took her at her word, and was as devoted as ever.  He had no thought of being anything else.  Arnault secured the last word, however, and Graydon made no effort to prevent this.  He had accepted the disagreeable situation, and proposed, although with increasing reluctance and discontent, to let the girl have a clear field and manage the affair as she thought wise under the circumstances.  He was too proud to have maintained a jostling and open pursuit with Arnault in any event, and now, believing that he understood the lady better, felt that there was no occasion for it He had indicated to her just where he stood, and just where she could ever find him.  When her diplomacy with Arnault should cease to be essential to her father’s safety, the final words could be spoken.

He acted on this policy so quietly that she was somewhat troubled, and feared that Madge might be taking too large a place in his thoughts.  Therefore, when Arnault ventured to make a somewhat humorous reference to the young girl’s appearance, her spite found utterance.  “I never saw such a looking creature in my life.  She had the appearance of a crazy woman, with her hair dishevelled, and her wet, muddy clothes sticking to her as if glued.  She ought at least to have slipped away when the doctor came.  But instead of that she fainted—­all put on, I believe, to attract attention.”