“Again?  I should like to pass my whole life in it!”

“Well, walk back with me a little way.  There’s no hurry about the car.”

“Dan!” she said, in a helpless compliance, and they paced very, very slowly along the Beacon Street path in the Garden.  “This is ridiculous.”

“Yes, but it’s delightful.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant.  Do you suppose any one ever—­ever—­”

“Made love there before?”

“How can you say such things?  Yes.  I always supposed it would be—­somewhere else.”  It was somewhere else—­once.”

“Oh, I meant—­the second time.”

“Then you did think there was going to be a second time?”

“How do I know?  I wished it.  Do you like me to say that?”

“I wish you would never say anything else.”

“Yes; there can’t be any harm in it now.  I thought that if you had ever—­liked me, you would still—­”

“So did I; but I couldn’t believe that you—­”

“Oh, I could.”

“Alice!”

“Don’t you like my confessing it!  You asked me to.”

“Like it!”

“How silly we are!”

“Not half so silly as we’ve been for the last two months.  I think we’ve just come to our senses.  At least I have.”

“Two months!” she sighed.  “Has it really been so long as that?”

“Two years!  Two centuries!  It was back in the Dark Ages when you refused me.”

“Dark Ages!  I should think so!  But don’t say refused.  It wasn’t refusing, exactly.”

“What was it, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  Don’t speak of it now.”

“But, Alice, why did you refuse me?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  You mustn’t ask me now.  I’ll tell you some time.”

“Well, come to think of it,” said Mavering, laughing it all lightly away, “there’s no hurry.  Tell me why you accepted me to-day.”

“I—­I couldn’t help it.  When I saw you I wanted to fall at your feet.”

“What an idea!  I didn’t want to fall at yours.  I was awfully mad.  I shouldn’t have spoken to you if you hadn’t stopped me and held out your hand.”

“Really?  Did you really hate me, Dan?”

“Well, I haven’t exactly doted on you since we last met.”

She did not seem offended at this.  “Yes, I suppose so.  And I’ve gone on being fonder and fonder of you every minute since that day.  I wanted to call you back when you had got half-way to Eastport.”

“I wouldn’t have come.  It’s bad luck to turn back.”

She laughed at his drolling.  “How funny you are!  Now I’m of rather a gloomy temperament.  Did, you know it?”

“You don’t look it.”

“Oh, but I am.  Just now I’m rather excited and—­happy.”

“So glad!”

“Go on! go on!  I like you to make fun of me.”