tone was not so much annoyed as it was patronizing, and Gerry accepted it in this spirit.

She disliked making social mistakes, and she had had so little social training and experience that she was apt to regard her mistakes as of more importance than they actually were.

Now she supposed that she had misunderstood Felipe from the beginning and that her own stupidity had been at fault. So she replied somewhat humbly:

"I am sorry. If Mrs. Burton is willing, of course I shall enjoy walking or sailing with you. But don't let me keep you away from the other girls too long tonight. Suppose we walk over and join Mrs. Burton."

As if she intended rising, Gerry made a slight movement. Her companion did not stir.

"Sit down, please, I am afraid you are angry," he returned. "I do wish I had my guitar with me; I should like to sing to you. Mrs. Burton asked me to bring it over tonight, but I had rather not sing before the others."

So Gerry stayed on and allowed Felipe to talk, while she said little in reply, only glancing now and then from the figure at her feet to the beauty of the moonlit ocean. Vaguely she wondered why she had always been convinced she did not care for the outdoor world. It was stupid never to have realized its loveliness until tonight!

But, while Gerry and Felipe were having their talk together, only a short distance away Lieutenant Geoffrey Carson and Bettina Graham were engaged in a very different character of conversation.

It chanced that Lieutenant Carson, who was a Virginian, had an uncle who had been a representative in Congress for a number of years. Having visited his uncle, Lieutenant Carson had not only heard of Bettina's distinguished father, but had met him and knew of his effort to persuade his country to take her high place among the nations in the fight for a world-wide democracy.

So, since Bettina Graham's father was her idol, she experienced none of her customary shyness in talking to the young National Guard officer. She had liked him in their former meetings, not resenting his quiet sense of humor, a contrast to her own seriousness.

"Then you are in absolute sympathy with our having entered the war, Lieutenant Carson?" Bettina inquired, adding: "I think I always have been—and yet now and then one cannot help feeling that all war must be wrong."

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