Hemming stood up, and grasped the other warmly by both hands. "I got along without your letter," he said, "but I don't know what might have happened by now if you'd not stumbled over me to-night. I saw Anderson, you know, and somehow got the idea into my head that I was out of the game."
"Out of the game," laughed Pollin. "No fear of that, my boy. Come over to my diggings, and we'll have a smoke on it."
As he led the prodigal from the club, clinging affectionately to his arm, he warned him of Mrs. Travers. "Don't pay any attention to her,—unless she happens to be polite," he said.
Late that night, after Hemming had returned to his hotel, Mr. Pollin sat up and penned a note to his niece.
CHAPTER IX.
TO PART NO MORE
"The eyes that wept for me, a night ago,
Are laughing now that we shall part no more."
It was later than usual when Molly awoke that morning. It seemed to her that the room looked brighter than it had for a long time. The pictures on the walls shone with a hitherto unnoticed glow. She lay still for awhile, recalling the night's dream, piecing the fragments one by one. The dream had been altogether pleasant and unusual. She had been in strange and delightful countries,—
"Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie."
She had seen the palms shake their stiff foliage against the steady winds. She had gone along a white street, gleaming between deep verandas, and Hemming had walked beside her, talking of his adventures and his hopes. She had heard surf-music drifting in from moonlit reefs, and the tinkling of mandolins out of alleys of roses. She had gone through a land of sweet enchantment with her lover's hand in hers.