matter," he said.

"I must not think of it! I must go instantly."

When they were seated, and he had nearly twisted his head off trying to meet her downcast eyes, he resumed a normal and less parrot-like posture, and folded his arms portentously.

"To begin," he said, "I came here fishing. I heard a stick crack——"

She looked up.

"That was my fault. It was all my fault. I don't know how I ever came to do it. I never did such a thing in my life. We merely heard that you and Mr. Langdon were in the woods——"

"Who heard?"

"We. Never mind the others. I'll say that I heard you were here. And—and I took my—my net and came to—to——"

"To what?"

"To—investigate."

"Investigate what? Me?"

"Y-yes. I can't explain. But I came, honestly, naturally, unsuspiciously. And as soon as I saw you I was quite sure that you were not what—what certain people wanted, even if you were the author of Amourette——"

"'To begin,' he said, 'I came here fishing.'"

"I was not what you wanted?" he repeated, bewildered.

"I mean that—that you were not what—what they required——"

"They? Who are they? And what, in Heaven's name, did 'they' require?"

"I don't want to tell you, Mr. Sayre. All I shall say is that I knew immediately that they didn't want you, because you are not up to the University standard. And you won't understand that. I ought to have gone quietly away. . . . I don't know why I didn't. I was so interested in listening to you recite, and in looking at you. I loved your poem, Amourette. . . . And two hours slipped by——"

"You stood there in the bushes looking at me for two hours, and listening to my poem—and liking it?"

"Yes, I did. . . . I don't know why. . . . And then, somehow, without any apparent reason, I wanted you to see me . . . without any apparent reason . . . and so I stepped on a dry stick. . . . And to-day I came back . . . without any apparent reason. . . . I don't know what on earth has happened to make me—make me—forget——"

"Forget what?"

"Everything—except——"

"Except what?"

She looked up at him with clear grey eyes, a trifle daunted.

"Forget everything except that I—like you, Mr. Sayre."

He said: "That is the sweetest and most fearless thing a woman ever said. I am absurdly happy over it."

She waited, looking down at her linked fingers.