"I have nothing to do with it," was the reply. "Grace commands this post, and while here you are under her orders."
"And you'll find out, too, what a martinet I am," she added. "There's no telling how often I'll put you under arrest and mount guard over you myself. So!"
"What numberless breaches of discipline there will be!"
Lovers' converse consists largely in tone and glance, and these cannot be written; and were this possible, it could have but the slenderest interest to the reader.
After a transient pause Hilland remarked: "Think of poor Graham in the fiery furnace of New York to-day. I can imagine what a wilted and dilapidated-looking specimen he will be if he escapes alive—By Jove, there he is!" and the subject of his speech came as briskly up the walk as if the thermometer had been in the seventies instead of the nineties. His dress was quiet and elegant, and his form erect and step elastic.
As he approached the piazza and doffed his hat, Hilland cried: "Graham, you are the coolest fellow I ever saw. I was just commiserating you, and expecting you to look like a cabbage—no, rose-leaf that had been out in the sun; and you appear just as if you had stepped from a refrigerator."
"All a matter of temperament and will, my dear fellow. I decided I would not be hot to-day; and I've been very comfortable."
"Why did you not decide not to be cold last night?"
"I was so occupied with your interminable yarns that I forgot to think about it. Miss Grace, for your sake and on this evening, I might wish that there was a coolness between us, but from your kind greeting I see there is not. Good-evening, major; I have brought with me a slight proof that I do not forget my friends;" and he handed him a large package of newspapers, several of them being finely illustrated foreign prints.
"I promote you on the spot," cried the delighted veteran. "I felt that fate owed me some amends for this long, horrid day. My paper did not come this morning, and I had too much regard for the lives of my household to send any one up the hot streets after one."