“You dear boy,” said Lana gently.  “If there were more men like you and fewer like—­ Sir John, there’d be no Clarissas in the world.”  She hesitated, then smiled audaciously.  “Perhaps no Lanas either....  There!  Go and court your sweetheart.  For she gave me a look but now which boded ill for me or for any other maid or matron who dares lay finger on a single thrum of your rifle-shirt.”

“You are wrong,” said I.  “She cares nothing for me in that manner.”

“What?  How do you know, you astounding boy?”

“I know it well enough.”

Lana shot a swift and curious look straight across the room at Lois, who now did not seem to be aware of her.

“She is beautiful... and—­ not made of marble,” said Lana softly to herself.  “Good God, no!  Scarcely made of marble....  And some man will awaken her one day....  And when he does he will unchain Aphrodite herself—­ or I guess wrong.”  She turned to me smiling.  “That girl yonder has never loved.”

“Why do you think so?”

“I know it; but I can not tell you why I know it.  Women divine where men reason; and we are oftener right than you....  Are you truly in love with her?”

“I can not speak of such things to you,” I muttered.

“Lord!  Is it as serious as that already?  Is it arrived at the holy and sacred stage?”

“Lana!  For heaven’s sake——­”

“I am not jeering; I am realising the solemn fact that you have progressed a certain distance in love and are arrived at a definite and well-known milestone....  And I am merely wondering how far she has progressed—­ or if she has as yet journeyed any particular distance at all—­ or any more than set out upon the road.  For the look she shot at me convinces me that she has started—­ in fact, has reached that turn in the thorny path where she is less inclined to defend herself than her own possessions.  You seem to be one of them.”

Boyd, who had awaited the termination of our tete-a-tete with an impatience perfectly apparent to anybody who chanced to observe him, now seemed able to endure it no longer; and as he approached us I felt Lana’s hand on my arm tremble slightly; but the cool smile still curved her lips.

She received him with a shaft of light raillery, and he laughed and retorted in kind, and then we three sauntered over to the table where was the floating island in a huge stone bowl of Indian ware.

Around this, and the tea and punch, everybody was now gathering, and there was much talking and laughing and offering of refreshment to the ladies, and drinking of humourous or gallant toasts.

I remember that Boyd, being called upon, instantly contrived some impromptu verses amid general approbation—­ for his intelligence was as lithe and graceful as his body was agile.  And our foppish Ensign, who was no dolt by a long shot either, made a most deft rondeau in flattery of the ladies, turning it so neatly and unexpectedly that we all drew our side-arms and, thrusting them aloft, cheered both him and the fair subjects of his nimble verses.