"You were a pretty good sort of fellow."
"Yes; you probably can't conceive of what a healing thought it is to me now that I have snubbed you many a time, young lady. I had to. Your attentions were so persistent in those days. Yes, mademoiselle, I had to hold you off, or I should never have had any peace of my life. I remember it well. Perhaps you don't."
"Oh yes, I do, perfectly," sighed Mildred. "Wasn't the Flirt the stanchest little dear that ever spread a sail; and to think that is all over! I don't feel nearly so much elation over going with Mr. Eames on that yacht party to-morrow as I used to in nagging you into consent that I should sail the Flirt."
"Is that the infantry officer?"
"Yes; and he is very nice. I should like you to meet him. If I knew him a little better I would have procured you an invitation. You should remember that virtue is its own reward. If you had not preferred smoking in the hammock to coming into the parlor and making yourself agreeable the other evening when Helen Eames and her mother were calling, they would surely have asked you to join the party. 'If you would be loved, be lovely.' That is what my mother used to tell me." Mildred laughed to herself.
"Then why don't you obey her?" returned Jack curtly.
"I don't want to be loved," returned the spoiled girl. "I'm loved too much already."
After this they marched in silence for a time, their springy steps carrying them by the foreign buildings, Ceylon, France with its green, fountain-sprayed court, Spain, and Germany. It was not until they turned beside Iowa's pavilion and left behind them the waves dashing on the sea-wall that Mildred spoke again.
"It gives me the blues, Jack, every time I see our boathouse stranded high and dry behind that nightmare of a Spectatorium."
"I don't see how you can call anything dry that is as full of beer as that is."