“Yes.  Pavilion Hill.  It’s on Randy Paine’s plantation—­King’s Crest.”

“Then you’ve been there?”

“A thousand times with Randy.”

“I thought it was Waterman’s.  We shan’t be jailed as trespassers, shall we?”

“No.  But how could you tell your man to have tea for us when you didn’t know that I’d be—­willing?”

“But I did—­know——­”

A little silence, then “How?”

“Because when I put my mind on a thing I usually get my way.”

She sat very still.  He bent down to her.  “You’re not angry?”

“No.”  Her cheeks were flaming.  She was thrilled by his masterfulness.  No man had ever spoken to her like that.  She was, indeed, having her first experience of ardent, impassioned pursuit.  So might young Juliet have given ear to Romeo.  And if Romeo had been a Georgie-Porgie, then alas, poor Juliet!

The Pavilion had been built a hundred and fifty years before of cedar logs.  There had been a time when Thomas Jefferson had walked over to drink not tea, but something stronger with dead and gone Paines.  Its four sides were open, but the vines formed a curtain which gave within a soft gloom.  They approached it from the east side, getting out of their car and climbing the hill from the roadside.  They found Kemp with everything ready.  The kettle was boiling, and the tea measured into the Canton teapot which stood in its basket——­

“Aren’t you glad you came?” Dalton asked.  “Kemp, when you’ve poured the tea, you can look after the car.”

The wind, rising, tore the dry leaves from the trees.  Kemp, exiled, as it were, from the Pavilion, sat in the big car and watched the gathering blackness.  Finally he got out and put up the curtains.  Everything would be ready when Dalton came.  He knew better, however, than to warn his master.  George was apt to be sharp when his plans were spoiled.

And now throughout the wooded slope there was the restless movement of nature disturbed in the midst of peaceful dreaming.  The trees bent and whispered.  The birds, flying low, called sharp warnings.  A small dog, spurning the leaves, as she followed a path up the west side of the hill, stopped suddenly and looked back at the man who followed her.

“We’ll make the Pavilion if we can, old girl,” he told her, and as if she understood, she went up and up in a straight line, disregarding the temptation of side tours into bush and bramble.

George and Becky had finished their tea.  There had been some rather delectable sweet biscuit which Kemp kept on hand for such occasions, and there was a small round box of glace nuts, which George had insisted that Becky must keep.  The box was of blue silk set off by gold lace and small pink roses.

“Blue is your color,” George had said as he presented it.

“That’s what Randy says.”

“You are always talking of Randy.”

She looked her surprise.  “I’ve always known him.”