After dinner the young Tolands, augmented by several young men, and by Julia and the doctor, all wandered out into the thick darkness, rejoicing in the return of summer.  Sausalito’s lanes were sweet with roses, lights shone out across the deep fresh green of gardens, and lights moved on the gently moving waters of the bay.  A ferryboat, a mass of checkered brightness, plowed its way from Alcatraz—­far off the city lay like a many-stranded chain of glittering gems upon the water.  Julia and Doctor Studdiford let the others go on without them, and sat together in the dim curve of the O’Connell seat, and the heartbreaking beauty of the night wrapped them both in a happiness so deep as to touch the borderland of pain.

“Was there ever such a night?” said little Julia.  “Shall we ever be so happy again?”

Jim could not see her clearly, but he saw her bright, soft eyes in the gloom, the shimmer of her loosened hair, the little white-clad figure in the seat’s wide curve, and the crossed slim ankles.  He put his arm about her, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Don’t say that, darling!” said Jim.  “This is great, of course.  But it’s nothing to all the happy months and years that we’ll belong to each other.  Nothing but death will ever come between you and me, Julie!”

“And I shouldn’t be afraid of death,” murmured Julia, staring up at the stars.  “Strange—­strange—­strange that we all must go that way some day!” she mused.

“Well, please God, we’ll do some living first,” Jim said, with healthy anticipation.  “We’ll go to New York, and gad about, and go to Washington and Boston, and pick up things here and there for the house, do you see?  Then we’ll come back here and go to a hotel, and find a house and fix it up!”

“That’ll be fun,” said Julia.

“You bet your life it’ll be fun!  And then, my dear, we’ll give some corking dinners, and my beautiful wife will wear blue velvet, or white lace, or peachy silk—­”

“Or all three together,” the prospective wife suggested, “with the flags of all nations in my hair!”

“Then next year we’ll visit old Gilchrist, at Monterey, and go up to Tahoe,” continued Jim, unruffled.  “Or we could take some place in Ross—­”

“And then I will give a small and select party for one guest,” said Julia whimsically,” and board him, free, for fifteen or twenty years—­”

“Julia, you little duck!” Jim bent his head over her in the starlight, and felt her soft hair brush his face, and caught the glint of her laughing eyes close to his own, and the vague delicious little perfume of youth and beauty and radiant health that hung about her.  “Do you know that you are as cunning as a sassy kid?” he demanded.  “Now, kiss me once and for all, and no nonsense about it, for I can hear the others coming back!”