"I never wished before that I was a smoker," said Page musingly, "but I suppose it would be rather foolish to cultivate the appetite merely to deny it."
"A piece of braggadocio which would be sure to reap the reward of failure," replied Clover.
"Don't say that, or you will tempt me to experiment. My first cigar made me dreadfully ill when I was twelve years old, and my father counter-irritated my internal misery with an outward application; so I didn't try it again for some time. In the past year I have occasionally yielded to Jack's urgency and smoked a cigar, but it doesn't interest me. I forget about it, and it goes out."
"By all means let well enough alone," laughed Clover.
"Do you object to the use of tobacco?" asked Page earnestly.
"In you I should," answered the other, her eyes shining in the darkness.
"I wish I could give it up," he replied simply.
CHAPTER XXII.
ON THE LAGOON.
Mildred and Jack, when they discovered that they had lost their companions, made no effort to find them.