creamy lace encircling it.  Against the darker background of green shrubs she resembled a picture entitled “Dreaming,” which he dimly recalled lingering before in some famous Eastern gallery, and his heart beat faster in wonderment at what the mystic dream might be.  To draw back unobserved was impossible, even had he possessed strength of will sufficient to make the attempt, nor would words of easy greeting come to his relief.  He could merely worship silently as before a sacred shrine.  It was thus she glanced up and saw him with startled eyes, her hands unclasping, her cheeks rose-colored.

“Lieutenant Brant, you here?” she exclaimed, speaking as if his presence seemed unreal.  “What strange miracles an idle thought can work!”

“Thoughts, I have heard,” he replied, coming toward her with head uncovered, “will sometimes awaken answers through vast distances of time and space.  As my thought was with you I may be altogether to blame for thus arousing your own.  From the expression of your face I supposed you dreaming.”

She smiled, her eyes uplifted for a single instant to his own.  “It was rather thought just merging into dream, and there are few things in life more sweet.  I know not whether it is the common gift of all minds, but my day-dreams are almost more to me than my realities.”

“First it was moods, and now dreams.”  He seated himself comfortably at her feet.  “You would cause me to believe you a most impractical person, Miss Naida.”

She laughed frankly, that rippling peal of unaffected merriment which sounded so like music to his ears.  “If that were only true, I am sure I should be most happy, for it has been my fortune so far to conjure up only pleasure through day-dreaming—­the things I like and long for become my very own then.  But if you mean, as I suspect, that I do not enjoy the dirt and drudgery of life, then my plea will have to be guilty.  I, of course, grant their necessity, yet apparently there are plenty who find them well worth while, and there should be other work for those who aspire.  Back of what you term practical some one has said there is always a dream, a first conception.  In that sense I choose to be a dreamer.”

“And not so unwise a choice, if your dreams only tend toward results.”  He sat looking into her animated face, deeply puzzled by both words and actions.  “I cannot help noticing that you avoid all reference to my meeting with Mr. Hampton.  Is this another sign of your impractical mind?”

“I should say rather the opposite, for I had not even supposed it concerned me.”

“Indeed!  That presents a vastly different view from the one given us an hour since.  The distinct impression was then conveyed to both our minds that you were greatly distressed regarding the matter.  Is it possible you can have been acting again?”

“I?  Certainly not!” and she made no attempt to hide her indignation.  “What can you mean?”