"I suppose you love this Archibald better than anybody," said I with a twinge of jealousy.
"Oh, no," she exclaimed quickly, and at once corrected herself.
"Not so much as I ought.

I love him, of course, for his father's sake: but in features he takes after his mother very strikingly, and that--on the few occasions I have seen him--chilled me.

It is wrong, I know; and no doubt with more opportunity I should have grown very fond of him.

Sometimes I tax myself, Harry, with being frail in my affections: they require renewing with a sight of--of their object.
That is why we are keeping our birthdays together to-day." She smiled at me, almost archly, putting out a hand to rest it on mine, which lay on my knee; then suddenly the smile wavered, and her eyes began to brim; I saw in them, as in troubled water, broken images of a hundred things I had known in dreams; and her arm was about my neck and I nestled against her.
"Dear Harry! Dear boy!" I cannot tell how long we sat there: certainly until the ships hung out their riding-lights and the May stars shone down on us.
At whiles we talked, and at whiles were silent: and both the talk and the silences (if you will not laugh) held some such meanings as they hold for lovers.

More than ever she was not the Miss Plinlimmon I remembered, but a strange woman, coming forth and revealing herself with the stars.