"You are really concerned this time?"
"Of course! I—I mean, naturally."
He drew her hand through his arm and led her along the fringe of the pine woods.
"Come and see," he said gently. "Poor boy he's had a bad fall."
"What! Is he here—with you?"
"Yes—yes," he answered, with an absent and melancholy air.
He led her a few paces into the trees, and there, seated on a fallen trunk, they saw the victim of fate smoking a cigarette with a meditative air. He sprang to his feet with a light in his eye that might have been the result of some acute disaster, but scarcely looked like it.
"Frank, my boy," said his father, "I have just been explaining to Ellen that you have fallen"—he turned to the girl with a merry air—"in love!" he chuckled, and the next moment they were listening to his flying footsteps and looking at one another.