"You'd thought out the end."

"Had I?"

"Unconsciously?"

A hand waved in impatient protest.

"If it was unconscious, how should I know?"

The Seraph glanced quickly up at her face, and turned away.

"True," he answered absently.

"No one could know," she persisted.

"_I_ knew."

"Guessed."

For answer he picked up his coat from the bottom of the boat, and extracted a closely written sheet of college note-paper. Folding it so that only the last line was visible, he handed it her with the words--

"You'll find it there."

Sylvia read the line, and gazed in perplexity at her companion.

"But I never _said_ it," she persisted.

"You were going to."

She turned the paper over without answering.

"What's on the other side?" she asked.

The Seraph extended an anxious hand.

"Please don't read that!" he implored her. "It's not meant for you to see."

"Is it about me?"

"Yes."

"Then why shouldn't I see it?"

"You may, but not now."

"Well, when?"

The Seraph's manner had grown suddenly agitated. To gain time, he produced a cigarette, but his agitation was betrayed in the trembling hand that held the match.

"When we meet again," he answered after a pause.

"We meet again to-night."

"When we meet--after parting."

"We part to dress for dinner."

"I mean a long, serious parting," he replied in a low voice.

Sylvia laughed at his suddenly grave expression.

"Are we going to quarrel?" she asked.

He nodded without speaking.

"Why, Seraph?" she asked more gently.

"We can't help it."

"It takes two to make a quarrel. _I_ don't want to."

"We shouldn't--if we were the only two souls in creation."

Sylvia sat silent, fidgeting with a signet ring, and from time to time looking questioningly into the troubled blue eyes before her.

"How do you _know_ these things?" she asked at length. "You can't know."

"Call it guessing, but I was right over the unfinished sentence, wasn't I?"

"Perhaps, but how do you know?"

"I don't. It's fancy. Some people spend their lives awake, others dreaming." He shrugged his shoulders. "I dream. And sometimes the dream's so real that I know it must be true."

Sylvia smiled with a shy wistfulness he had not seen on her face before.

"I wish you wouldn't dream we were going to quarrel," she said. "I don't want to lose you as a friend."

"You won't. Some day I shall be able to help you, when you want help badly."

Almost imperceptibly her mouth hardened its lines, and her eyes recovered their disdainful, independent fire.

"Why should I want help?" she asked.

"I don't know," was all he could answer. "You will."

Their canoe had drifted to the Rollers. The Seraph landed, helped Sylvia out of the boat, and stood silently by while it was hauled up and lowered into the water on the other side. As they paddled slowly through Mesopotamia neither was able--perhaps neither was willing--to pick up the threads of the conversation where they had been dropped.

In silence they passed the Magdalen Bathing Place, through the shade of Addison's Walk, under the Bridge and alongside the Meadows.

Sylvia's mind grappled uneasily with the half-comprehended words he had spoken.