She turned quickly away, conscious at last that the midsummer dream of those yachting days had to Derrick been no dream at all, but a life-long reality.
I felt very sorry for Freda, for she was not at all the sort of girl who would glory in having a fellow hopelessly in love with her.

I knew that the discovery she had made would be nothing but a sorrow to her, and could guess how she would reproach herself for that innocent past fancy, which, till now, had seemed to her so faint and far-away--almost as something belonging to another life.

All at once we heard the others descending, and she turned to me with such a frightened, appealing look, that I could not possibly have helped going to the rescue.

I plunged abruptly into a discourse on Beckford, and told her how he used to keep diamonds in a tea-cup, and amused himself by arranging them on a piece of velvet.

Sir Richard fled from the sound of my prosy voice, and, needless to say, Derrick followed him.