"Come over here and sit down," he said, drawing her away from the path to a rock among the trees, and laying himself at her feet. "Now what was it I said in that unfortunate letter?"
"It was not unfortunate," said Cherry, "for we were very glad to get it; only that puzzled us. You said you kept some sort of a storm flag flying. And we did not know what a storm flag might be."
Magnus looked down for a moment in silence.
"No wonder," he said, "for the idea is something that never came into your true heart. You know what it means to strike your colours?"
"Yes—oh, yes!"
"And what it is to keep them flying,—for you do it every day."
"And I thought that must be what you meant," said Cherry. "You did not like to call your flag a big one, but it was always bravely flying."
"I meant more than that—or less," said Magnus. "Cerise, a storm flag is a sort of between thing. It may blow pretty hard, you think, and so you haul down your beautiful fair-weather banner and run up another that costs less; a little, little strip of bunting that hardly shows it is there. You know it is; and once in a while, in a good light, you can see the colours; but that is about all. It does not encourage the world much, and tells of hard weather more than of victory and joy. Do you understand now, dear girl?"
Cherry was looking at him with the keenest attention; the pulsations of colour came and went.
"But, Magnus," she began.