Ponting?”

She shut the door, leaving the two young people alone together—not that Mr. Ponting was a young man in Lily’s eyes. As a matter of fact he was rather under than over forty.

40“They’re awfully kind people,” Mr. Ponting began at once in a confidential tone. “They’ve been ever so good to me the last few weeks! I’m a lonely chap, and the first time I came up to this cute little place, well, it was like heaven after the sort of gang I’d got in with down there.”

40

“I suppose you’re American,” said Lily politely.

“American?” he coloured, slightly offended. “No—not I. I’m British, for all I come from Pernambuco.”

He went on talking eagerly, evidently liking the sound of his own voice, and delighting in his attractive listener.

After a very few minutes Lily felt as if she knew all about Mr. George Ponting. How, though he had spent all his youth building up a good business in Pernambuco, he had started for the Old Country on August 6, 1914. How awfully lonely he had felt in England, not knowing a soul. But how he had been all right once he got out to Flanders. How, though three times badly wounded, he was now as sound as a bell. Finally, how he had come to the Riviera to see a little of the world before going home and starting work again, and how he had found a pal, a splendid chap, who was sailing with him from Marseilles to-morrow night!

It was a simple, usual little story, no doubt, yet it touched Lily, and made her manner very kind.

Suddenly Mr. Ponting took out of his pocket a shabby shagreen case. He opened it and held it out to her. On the worn black velvet lay a small gold box, exquisitely chased in different coloured golds.

“Pretty thing, isn’t it?” he said complacently. “’Twould do for stamps—that’s what I said to myself, though I believe it was what people used to keep snuff in—queer idea, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Lily, smiling; “I think it is the prettiest little box I’ve ever seen!”

He opened it, and showed her engraved inside the lid the words, “Mon cœur à toi. Ma vie au Roi.”

Mon cœur à toi. Ma vie au Roi.

“Say!” he exclaimed. “Will you have it? Just as a souvenir, you know!”

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