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He suddenly seized her by both shoulders, looked into her eyes searchingly. “This isn’t a bit like you, Rix. What are you up to?”

She simply gazed at him—a gaze he found it hard to withstand; yet he could not shift his charmed eyes.

“You’re trying to lead me on. Why?” he demanded.

“Because we love each other, Chang,” she said as simply and sweetly as a child.

He laughed gently. “What a romancer you are! Fortunately, I’m a man. I don’t take advantage of a baby.”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“And as ignorant of the world as a baby,” declared he, like grandfather to grandchild.

“I know what I want when I see it, just as well as you do, Chang,” she replied steadily. “Better—because you’re making me do all the talking—which isn’t gentlemanly of you.” Her eyes filled with tears—and very lovely they looked—like dew-drenched violets. “If it wasn’t that you’re holding back simply because you’re poor I’d not forgive you so easily.”

He dropped his hands from her shoulders, turned away abruptly. He strode to the edge of the lake and debated with himself. When he came back to her he was serene though grave. At sight of his expression, which she had eagerly awaited, she shivered. “Rix,” he said—and all the fine frankness and simplicity of his nature were in his eyes and his voice—“it’s lucky for you that I’ve lived a little, or we might be dragging each other into a fearful mess. You think you’ve fallen in love—don’t you?”