As she did so, Marion noticed again the beauty of those hands and the graceful character of the gesture, so much so that she forgot the flat hair and the unstayed body, and the rather broad feet, and the delicate duskiness, which had so worked upon her in imagination and in fact the evening before.

She put her hand kindly on that long slim hand stretched out beside her, and, because she knew not what else to speak, and because the tongue is very perverse at times,--saying the opposite of what is expected,--she herself blundered out, "How! How! Lali." Perhaps Lali was as much surprised at the remark as Marion herself, and certainly very much more delighted.

The sound of those familiar words, spoken by accident as they were, opened the way to a better understanding, as nothing else could possibly have done.

Marion was annoyed with herself, and yet amused too.

If her mind had been perfectly assured regarding Captain Vidall, it is probable that then and there a peculiar, a genial, comradeship would have been formed.