Romance Island

"Please tell me how you got here," Olivia demanded then.

St. George told her briefly, omitting the yacht's ownership, explaining merely that the paper had sent him and that Jarvo and Akko had pointed the way and, save for that journey down nebulous ways in the wake of her veil the night before, sketching the incidents which had followed his arrival upon the island.

"And one of the most agreeable hours I've had in Yaque," he finished, "was last night, when you were chairman of the meeting. That was magnificent."

"You were there!" cried Olivia, "I thought--"

"That you saw me?" St. George pressed eagerly.

"I think that I thought so," she admitted.

"But you never looked at me," said St. George dolefully, "and I had on a forty-two gored dress, or something."

"Ah," Olivia confessed, "but I had thought so before when I knew it couldn't be you."

St. George's heart gave a great bound.

"When before?" he wanted to know ecstatically.

"Ah, before," she explained, "and then afterward, too."

"When afterward?" he urged.

(Smile if you like, but this is the way the happy talk goes in Yaque as you remember very well, if you are honest.) "Yesterday, when I was motoring, I thought--"

"I was. You did," St. George assured her. "I was in the prince's motor. The procession was temporarily tied up, you remember. Did you really think it was I?"

But this the lady passed serenely over.

"Last night," she said, "when that terrible thing happened, who was it in the other motor? Who was it, there in the road when I--was it you? Was it?" she demanded.

"Did you think it was I?" asked St. George simply.

"Afterward--when I was back in the palace--I thought I must have dreamed it," she answered, "and no one seemed to know, and I didn't know. But I did fancy--you see, they think father has taken the treasure," she said, "and they thought if they could hide me somewhere and let it be known, that he would make some sign."

"It was monstrous," said St. George; "you are really not safe here for one moment. Tell me," he asked eagerly, "the car you were in--what became of that?"

"I meant to ask you that," she said quickly. "I couldn't tell, I didn't know whether it turned aside from the road, or whether they dropped me out and went on. Really, it was all so quick that it was almost as if the motor had stopped being, and left me there."

"Perhaps it did stop being--in this dimension," St. George could not help saying.

At this she laughed in assent.