ailing—but I freckle. Isn't it a shame?" She put one hand to her nose which had an upward tilt.

[Pg 30]

[Pg 30]

"Oh, that's all right," laughed Philip. "Call 'em beauty spots."

She sat, pensively continuing to cover her nose with her silk-gloved hand.

"Perhaps you're hungry. I ought to have bought you some chocolates," said Philip. "Perhaps there's time still." He looked at his watch.

Veronica smiled. It was a pleasant operation to view and disclosed a dimple. "Did Aunt Priscilla give you money to buy me candy? Don't bother. I have some gum. Would you like some?" As she spoke, she opened her handbag.

Philip bent a dreadful frown upon her. "Do you chew gum?" he asked severely.

"Yes, sometimes, of course. Everybody does."

"Then you deserve to freckle. You deserve all the awful things that can befall a girl."

"Well, for a hired man," said Veronica, her hand pausing in its exploration, "you have the most nerve of any one I ever saw."

She seemed quite heated by this condemnation, and instead of the gum drew out a vanity box and, looking in the mirror, powdered her nose deliberately.

[Pg 31]

[Pg 31]

Philip opened his magazine. The whistle blew and the boat began to back out of the slip. Veronica regarded her companion from time to time out of the tail of her eye, and at a moment when his manner indicated absorption in what he was reading, she replaced the vanity case in her bag and when her hand reappeared, it conveyed something to her mouth.

"I wouldn't," said Philip, without looking up. She colored hotly.

"Nobody asked you to," she retorted.

Then all was silence while the steamer, getting its direction, began moving toward the islands that 

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