“Wh—­what?” she asked faintly.

“Intelligent interest in me.”

“Do you mean,” she said slowly, “that you think I underestimate you?”

“Not as I am.  I don’t amount to much; but I might if you cared.”

“Cared for you?”

“No, confound it!  Cared for what I could be.”

“I—­I don’t think I understand.  What could you be?”

“A man, for one thing.  I’m a thing that dances.  A fashionable portrait painter for another.  The combination is horrible.”

“You are a successful painter.”

“Am I?  Geraldine, in all the small talk you and I have indulged in since my return from abroad, have you ever asked me one sincere, intelligent, affectionate question about my work?”

“I—­yes—­but I don’t know anything about——­”

He laughed, and it hurt her.

“Don’t you understand,” she said, “that ordinary people are very shy about talking art to a professional——­”

“I don’t want you to talk art.  Any little thing with blue eyes and blond curls can do it.  I wanted you to see what I do, say what you think, like it or damn it—­only do something about it!  You’ve never been to my studio except to stand with the perfumed crowd and talk commonplaces in front of a picture.”

“I can’t go alone.”

“Can’t you?” he asked, looking closely at her in the dusk, so close that she could see every mocking feature.

“Yes,” she said in a low, surprised voice, “I could go alone—­anywhere—­with you....  I didn’t realise it before, Duane.”

“You never tried.  You once mistook an impulse of genuine passion for the sort of thing I’ve done since.  You made a terrific fuss about being kissed when I saw, as soon as I saw you, that I wanted to win you, if you’d let me.  Since then you’ve chosen the key-note of our relations, not I, and you don’t like my interpretation of my part.”

For a while she sat silent, preoccupied with this totally new revelation of a man about whom she supposed she had long ago made up her mind.

“I’m glad we’ve had this talk,” she said at last.

“I am, too.  I haven’t asked you to fall in love with me; I haven’t asked for your confidence.  I’ve asked you to take an intelligent, affectionate interest in what I might become, and perhaps you and I won’t be so lonely if you do.”

He struck a match in the darkness and lighted a cigarette.  Close inshore Scott Seagrave’s electric torch flashed.  They heard the velvety scraping of the canoe, the rattle and thump as he flung it, bottom upward, on the sandy point.

“Hello, you people!  Where are you?”—­sweeping the wood’s edge with his flash-light—­“oh, there you are.  Isn’t this glorious?  Did you ever see such a sight as those big fellows jumping?”

“Meanwhile,” said his sister, rising, “our guests are doubtless yelling with hunger.  What time is it, Duane?  Half-past eight?  Please hurry, Scott; we’ve got to get back and dress in five minutes!”