“It spoils books to leave them out all night.  I will help you to find it.”  He got up, and pretended to look about.  “It is not on this seat—­”

“Perhaps Miss Keene has taken it in.  She is always after me to pick up my litters.  It won’t rain, anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

“No, it won’t rain tonight.  Awfully nice night, isn’t it?  I came over here to get a quiet smoke and let those fellows subside a bit.  I could not stand their noise, and the place is stifling.”

“I’m afraid so.  I’m so sorry we have to put you there; but you know—­”

“Oh, of course!  I don’t mind a bit.  It is hot indoors, wherever you are.  If it were not for the mosquitoes, it would be nice to sleep in hammocks under the trees this weather.”  “I have often thought so.  I can’t breathe shut up.  Rose is in my room tonight, and she seems like a whole crowd.  I had to come out to cool myself.”  “And to get your book.  What book was it?” “The—­er—­Clough’s poems.”  “How many copies have you?—­because one of them has been in my pocket for two days.”

“Well, I don’t want it.  Good-night!”

She put out her hand.  He took it and held it.  The moonlight now was very bright, but not bright enough to reveal his smile or her blush.  However, neither could be hidden from the second sight of love.  “Don’t go yet, Debbie.  I never get a word with you these days, you are so taken up with all sorts of people.  And you haven’t had time to get cool yet.  I know you haven’t—­by the feel of your hand.”

She tried to withdraw it, but did not try very hard.

“My dear boy,” she trembled, “do you know what time it is?  It must be simply all hours.”

“What does that matter?  We are not keeping anybody up.”  “And there’s tomorrow to be considered.  Christmas Eve is always such a busy, tiring—­”

“Sufficient for the day.  Let us take things as we can get them.  Besides, you will sleep all the better for it.  Five minutes more or less—­”

He pulled gently but firmly at the imprisoned hand.  “Well, just five minutes—­although it’s really—­”

She was drawn down to the bench beside him, and the man in the moon, as he looked into their shining, happy eyes, seemed to wink knowingly.

“Oh, Debbie, isn’t it a heavenly night?  Oh, Debbie!” His arms went round her, and she simply melted into them.  “Oh, my love!...”

Five minutes!  It ran to an hour and a half before she scudded across the lawn to bed.

And it was Mary, the busy housekeeper, who, on her busiest day, drove to the station to meet Guthrie Carey and the baby, and the baby’s cheap and temporary child-nurse.