Sit down, you little vixen!" "Leila, you laugh at everything when I don't feel like it." "I'm not in love, and that's why." "You are in love!" Leila looked at her, then under her breath: "In love, am I--with the whole young world ringing with the laughter I had forgotten the very sound of?
Do you call that love ?--with the sea and sky laughing back at me, and the wind in my ears fairly tremulous with laughter?
Do you, who look out upon the pretty world so seriously through those sea-blue eyes of yours, think that I can be in love ?" "Oh, Leila, a girl's happiness is serious enough, isn't it?
Dear, it frightens me! I was so close to losing it--once." "I lost mine," said Leila, closing her eyes for a moment.

"I shall not sigh if I find it again." They sat there in the sun, Leila's hand lying idly in Sylvia's, the soft sea-wind stirring their hair, and in their ears the thunderous undertone of the mounting sea.
"Look at Stephen!" murmured Sylvia, her enraptured eyes following him as he strolled hatless and coatless along the cliff's edge, the sun glimmering on his short hair, a tall, slim, well-coupled, strongly knit shape against the sky and sea.
But Leila's quick ear had caught a significant sound from the gravel drive behind her, and she stood up, a delicious colour tinting her face.
"Are you going in ?" asked Sylvia.

Then she, too, heard the subdued whirring of a motor from the front of the house, and she looked at Leila as she turned and recrossed the terrace, walking slowly but erect, her pretty head held high.
Then Sylvia faced the sea again and presently descended the terrace, crossing the long lawn toward the headland, where Siward stood looking out across the water.
Leila, from the music-room, watched her; then she heard Plank's voice, and his step on the stair, and she called out to him gaily: "I am downstairs, thank you.

How dared you send me those foolish nurses!" She was laughing when he came into the room, standing there erect, head high, a brilliant colour in her cheeks; and she offered him both hands which he took between his own, holding them strongly, and looking into her face with steady, questioning eyes.
"Well ?" she said, still smiling, but her scarlet under-lip trembled a little; then: "Yes, you may say what you wish--what I--I wish you to say.

...