into her deep blue eyes, and unintelligent as he was in such subtle matters read his answer therein. "I shall do my best," he said with a deep sigh; "but you must give me time to cool down from passion to friendship. I want you to be my wife, and like all women you offer to be a sister to me."
"Or I will be your cousin if the relation will suit you better," said the girl, laughing outright at his rueful looks.
Julian took offence. "You don't pity me?"
"Not at all, since your feeling is not one of genuine love," was the cool response. "I would if it were."
"One would think you were a hardened woman of the world to hear you speak in this way."
"Perhaps I was a woman of the world in my last incarnation, Julian. I seem to have brought over a great deal of common sense to this life. You are a dear, sweet, placid thing, but although you have seen more of human nature and worldly existence this time than I have, you don't know half so much."
"Alice, you are conceited."
"Ah, that speech shows you are yet heart-whole, Julian. If you were really in love you would never dare to speak so to your divinity."
"Well, I daresay I shall get over it. But it's hard on a fellow."
"Not at all. Hard on your vanity perhaps, but vanity isn't you. Come," Alice sprang to her feet and took up her smart silver-headed cane, "the sun will soon go down and I must get home. We are friends, are we not?" she held out her hand smiling.
"Of course we are." Hardwick bent to kiss her hand and she snatched it away swiftly.
"That isn't friendship."
"Oh, with you friendship means: 'You may look, but you mustn't touch.'"
"Exactly," said Miss Enistor lightly, "consider me if you please as a valuable Dresden china ornament under a glass shade."
Julian heaved another sigh and began to collect his painting materials. "I must if I must," he admitted grudgingly; "there isn't another man, I suppose?"
The face of the girl grew grave. "There isn't another man whom I love, if that is what you mean," she said, reluctantly. "I have not yet met with my Prince, who will wake me to love and beauty. But there is a man who wants, as you do, to be the Prince."
"Oh hang him, who is he?"
"Don Pablo Narvaez!"
"That old mummy. Impossible!"
"It is both possible and disagreeable. He hinted the other day that he – "
"Loved you? What impertinence!"
"No," said Alice dryly, "he did not commit himself so far. But he hinted that he would like me to be his wife. My father afterwards told me that it would be a good match for me, as Don Pablo is wealthy."
"Wealthy be blessed, Alice," rejoined Hardwick with great heat. "You don't want to take your husband from a museum."
"I don't and I won't," she replied with great determination, "and for that reason I wish you to be my friend."
"Why, what can I do?"
"Stand by me. If my father insists upon my marrying Don Pablo, you must say that I am engaged to you, and this will give you the right to interfere."
Hardwick packed his traps, and swung up the hill on the home-path alongside the girl. "How can you ask me to take up such a position when you know that I love you, Alice?"
"If I thought that you did I should not ask for your help, Julian. But in your own heart you know that you really do not love me. It is only what you call the glamour of my personality that has caught you for the moment. It is not improbable," she went on musingly, "that there may be some slight link between us dating from our meeting in former lives, but it is not a strong enough one to bring us together this time as man and wife!"
"Oh, this mystical talk makes me tired," cried the painter in quite an American way, "it's silly."
"So it is from your point of view," said Miss Enistor promptly, "let us get down to what you call common sense in your robust Anglo-Saxon style. I want you to stand between me and Don Pablo in the way I suggest. Will you?"
"Yes. That is – give me a day or two to think the matter over. I am flesh and blood, you know, Alice, and not stone."
"Oh, nonsense, you deceive yourself," she retorted impatiently. "Don't I tell you that if I thought your feeling for me was really genuine I should not be so wicked as to risk your unhappiness? But I know you better than you do yourself. If you loved me, would you have chatted about this, that and the other thing so lightly after I had rejected you?"
"There is something in that," admitted Hardwick, as Alice had done previously with regard to his whole-loaf argument. "Well, I daresay I shall appear as your official lover. Don Pablo shan't worry you if I can help it."
"Thanks, you dear good boy," rejoined the girl gratefully and squeezed the artist's arm. "Don't you feel fire running through your veins when I touch you, Julian?"
"No," said Hardwick stolidly.
"Doesn't your heart beat nineteen to the dozen: haven't you the feeling that this is heaven on earth?"
"Not a bit."
Alice dropped his arm with a merry laugh. "And you talk about being in love with me! Can't you see now how wise I was to refuse you?"
"Well," said Hardwick reluctantly, for he felt that she was perfectly right in her diagnosis; "there may be something in what you say."
"There is everything in what I say," she insisted; "however, I shall give you another chance. Catch me before I reach Tremore and I shall be your wife."
Before Hardwick could accept or refuse, she sprang up the narrow winding path as lightly as Atalanta. More out of pique than absolute desire the artist followed. Although he now began to see that he had taken a false Eros for the true one, he resolutely sped after the flying figure, if only to have the pleasure of refusing the prize when he won it. But he might as well have attempted to catch an air-bubble. Alice was swifter than he was, and ran in a flying way which reminded him of a darting swallow. Down the declivity she dropped, following the twists of the pathway amongst the purple heather, and sprang across the brawling stream at the bottom of the valley before he was half-way down. Then up she mounted, with an arch backward glance, to scale the hill whereon Tremore gloomed amidst its muffling trees. At the gate set in the mouldering brick wall he nearly caught her, for pride winged his feet. But she eluded his grasp with a laugh and disappeared amongst the foliage of the miniature forest. When next she came in sight, he beheld her standing at the sombre porch of the squat mansion binding up her tresses of black hair, which had become loose with her exertions.
"You don't love me," panted Alice, who had scarcely got her breath, "if you did I should have been in your arms by this time."
"Pouf!" puffed Hardwick, wiping his wet brow. "Pouf! pouf! pouf!"
"Is that all you have to say?"
"It is all I am able to say. Pouf! Pouf! Well, my dear girl, Saul went to look for his asses and found a kingdom. I went to look for a kingdom of love and find an ass – in myself."
"Oh no! no!" protested Alice, rather distressed.
"Oh
