“Of course you may.”  Her sparkling glance met his.  Evidently they were very good friends, and understood each other.

“If he does,” said King, in a sort of growl, “he’ll have something to settle with me.”

He went to bed in a peculiar frame of mind.  Why had she wanted to waste all these hours when at nine in the morning the party was to leave for its return trip?  Well, he supposed morning would come sometime, though it seemed, at midnight, a long way off.

“Want me to call you at five-thirty, Jord?” Burns had inquired of him at parting.

“No, thanks,” he had replied.  “I’ll not miss it.”

“A fellow might lie awake so long thinking about it that he’d go off into a sound sleep just before daylight, and sleep right through his early morning appointment,” urged his loyal friend.  “Better let me—­”

“Oh, you go on to bed!” requested King irritably.

“No gratitude to one who has brought all this to pass, eh?”

“Heaps of it.  But this evening has been rather a facer.”

“Not at all.  There were a dozen times when you might have rushed in and got a little quiet place all to yourself, with only the stars looking on.  Plenty of openings.”

“I didn’t see ’em.  You were always in the way.”

“I was!  Well, I like that.  Had to be ordinarily attentive to my hostess, hadn’t I?  It wasn’t for me to take shy little boys by the hand and lead them up to the little girls they fancied.”

“I don’t want to be led up by the hand, thank you.  Good-night!”

* * * * *

King was up at daybreak, which in May comes reasonably early.  Stealing down through the quiet house, the windows of which seemed to be all wide open to the morning air, he came out upon the porch and took the path to the lilac hedge.  Arrived there at only twenty minutes before the appointed hour, he had so long a wait that he began to grow both impatient and chagrined.  At quarter-past six he was feeling very much like stalking back to the house and retiring to his room, when the low sound of a motor arrested him, and he wheeled, to discover a long, low, gray car, of a type with which he was not familiar, sailing gracefully around the long curve of the driveway toward him.  A trim figure in gray, with a small gray velvet hat pulled close over auburn hair, was at the wheel, and a vivid face was smiling at him.  But the air of the driver as she drew up beside him was not at all sentimental, rather it was businesslike.

“I’m awfully sorry to be late,” she said, “but I couldn’t possibly help it.  I got up at four, to make a call I had to make and be back, but I was detained.  And even now I must be off again, without any lingering by lilac hedges.  What shall we do about it?”

“I’ll go with you.”  And King stepped into the car.

“With or without an invitation?” Her eyes were laughing, though her lips had sobered.