He looked at her with love in his eyes.

“This time, you mean—­or all the time.”

“All the time, if you like.”

“I do like; there has got to be some one person in this world to whom I can talk straight, Ardea.”

She laughed a little laugh of half-constraint.

“You speak as if there had been a vacancy.”

“There has been—­for just about three years.  I remember you told me once that I’d find two kinds of friends:  those who would refuse to believe anything bad of me, and those who would size me up and still stick to me.  You are the only one of that second lot I have discovered thus far.”

“We are getting miles away from the Fifth Avenue Hotel,” she reminded him.

“No; we are just now approaching it from the proper direction.  I had my war paint on that morning, and I wasn’t fit to talk to you.”

“Business?” she queried.

“Yes.  Didn’t the Major tell you about it?”

“Not a word.  I hope you didn’t quarrel with him, too?”

He marked the adverb of addition and wondered if Vincent Farley had been less reticent than Major Dabney.

“No; I didn’t quarrel with your grandfather.”

“But you did quarrel with Mr. Farley?—­or was it with Vincent?”

He smiled and shook his head.

“We can’t do it, Ardea—­go back to the old way, you know.  You see there’s a stump in the road, the very first thing.”

“I shan’t admit it,” she said half-defiantly.  “I am going to make you like the Farleys.”

He shook his head again.  “You’ll have to make a Christian of me first, and teach me how to love my enemies.”

“Don’t you do that now?”

“No; not unless you are my enemy; I love you.”

She looked up at him appealingly.

“Don’t make fun of such things, Tom.  Love is sacred.”

“I was never further from making fun of things in my life.  I mean it with every drop of blood in me.  You said you didn’t want to find me changed; I’m not changed in that, at least.”

“You ridiculous boy!” she said; but that was only a stop-gap, and Longfellow added another by coming to a stand opposite a vast obstruction of building material half damming the white road.  “What are you doing here—­building more additions?” she asked.

“No,” said Tom.  “It is a new plant—­a pipe foundry.”

“Don’t tell me we are going to have more neighbors in Paradise,” she said in mock concern.

“I’ll tell you something that may shock you worse than that:  the owner of this new plant has camped down right next door to Deer Trace.”

“How dreadful!  You don’t mean that!”

“Oh, but I do.  He’s a young man, of poor but honest parentage, with a large eye for the main chance.  I shouldn’t be surprised if he took every opportunity to make love to you.”

“How absurd you can be, Tom!  Who is he?”

“He is Mr. Caleb Gordon’s son.  I think you think you know him, but you don’t; nobody does.”