“Oh, darn!  I wanted to see her!  She wrote me, and told me she loved me, and that she didn’t think she had been a very good mother to me!” He laughed, youthfully, with a bewildered widening of his eyes.  “I thought she was sick.  Well, maybe we can stop there going back.”

“Where did you leave Mr. Blondin?”

“He beat it down to the tennis court.  Say, listen, is there a chance that he’s stuck on Nina?  It looks to me like what the watch comes in!”

Harriet glanced at her wrist before she answered him.  Her heart was sick within her.  Close upon her radiant dream had come this shadow, far more a shadow now, when her responsibility had infinitely increased, and when she had had proof of the love and respect in which they held her here.

“I don’t think so!” she said, briefly.  “I’ll find Bottomley, and have lunch put ahead.”

“You don’t like him!” Ward said, watching her closely.

“I don’t like him for Nina!” she amended.

The boy followed her while she gave her order.  Then they went out into the blazing day together.

“Nina isn’t going to have more than a scalp a day,” said her brother, fraternally.

“Nina has a fortune!” the girl remarked, drily, opening her wide white parasol.

But Ward was rapidly squandering an equal amount, and it was not impressive to him.

“Lord, he could marry a girl with ten times that!  Look here, you don’t think a man like Blondin would consider that!” he protested.

“I would rather see Nina dead and buried!” The words burst from Harriet against her will, against her promise to Royal.  There was no help for it, her essential honesty would have its way.  “I make a splendid conspirator!” she said to herself, in grim self-contempt.

“Talk to him!” Ward, fortunately, was not inclined to take her too seriously.  “You’ll like him!  Gosh, he certainly has a good effect on me,” added the youth, modestly.  “He doesn’t drink, and he talks to me—­you ought to hear him!—­about character being fate, and all that!  Say, listen, before we get out of the woods—?”

His sudden sense of her nearness and beauty belied the careless words.  Harriet found his arms tight about her, her face tipped up to the young, handsome face that was stirred now with trembling excitement.  The quick movement of his breast she could feel against her own, and the passion of his kisses almost frightened her; she was held, bound, half-lifted off her feet.

“Ward!” she gasped, freed at last, and with one hand to her disordered hair, while the other held him at arm’s-length.  “Dear!  Please!”

It was no use.  Soul and senses were enveloped again, and close to her ear she heard his whisper:  “I’m mad about you!  Do you know that!  I’m mad about you!”

“I think you are!” she stammered, breathless and laughing.  “You mustn’t do that!  You mustn’t do that!  Why, we might be seen!”