Again she felt the solid wall of character blocking her design, and within herself raged and marveled, and more deeply, admired.  Resentment was uppermost, however.  Find a way through that barrier she must and would.  Whatever scruples may have been aroused by his appeal to her she banished.  No integer of the impressionable sex had ever yet won from her such a battle.  None ever should:  and assuredly not this one.  The Great American Pumess was now all feline.

She leaned forward to him.  “You promised.”

“I?”

“Have you forgotten?”

“I have never forgotten one word that has passed between us since I first saw you.”

“Ah; but when was that?”

“Seven weeks ago to-day, at the station.”

[Illustration:  “KILL IT,” SHE URGED SOFTLY.]

“Fifteen years ago this summer,” she corrected.  “You have forgotten,” She laughed gayly at the amazement in his face.  “And the promise.”  Up went a pink-tipped finger in admonition.  “Listen and be ashamed, O faithless knight.  ’Little girl, little girl:  I’d do anything in the world for you, little girl.  Anything in the world, if ever you asked me.’  Think, and remember.  Have you a scar on your left shoulder?”

The effort of recollection dimmed Hal’s face.  “Wait!  I’m beginning to see.  The light of the torches across the square, and the man with the knife.—­Then darkness.—­was unconscious, wasn’t I?—­Then the fairy child with the soft eyes, looking down at me.  Little girl, little girl, it was you!  That is why I seemed to remember, that day at the station, before I knew you.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling up at him.

“How wonderful!  And you remembered.  How more than wonderful!”

“Yes, I remembered.”  It was no part of her plan—­quite relentless, now—­to tell him that her uncle had recounted to her the events of that far-distant night, and that she had been holding them in reserve for some hitherto undetermined purpose of coquetry.  So she spoke the lie without a tremor.  What he would say next, she almost knew.  Nor did he disappoint her expectation.

“And so you’ve come back into my life after all these years!”

“You haven’t taken back your proof.”  She slipped it into his hand.  “What have you done with my subscription-flower?”

“The arbutus?  It stands always on my desk.”

“Do you see the rest of it anywhere?”

Her eyes rested on a tiny vase set in a hanging window-box of flowers, and holding a brown and withered wisp.  “I tend those flowers myself,” she continued.  “And I leave the dead arbutus there to remind me of the responsibilities of journalism—­and of the hold I have over the incorruptible editor.”

“Does it weigh upon you?” He answered the tender laughter in her eyes.

“Only the uncertainty of it.”

“Do you realize how strong it is, Esme?”

“Not so strong, apparently, as certain foolish scruples.”  A soft color rose in her face, as she half-buried it in a great mass of apple blossom.  From the mass she chose a spray, and set it in the bosom of her dress, then got to her feet and moved slowly toward him.  “You’re not wearing my colors to-night.”  This was directed to the white rose in his buttonhole.  He took it out and tossed it into the fireplace.