A Bullet In Arcadia

"A while back," mused Diane innocently, "there was a shooting star above the ridge--"

"Yes?" said Philip puffing comfortably at his pipe.

"I meant to call your attention to it but 'Hey!' and 'Look!' were dreadfully abrupt."

"There is always--'Philip!'" insinuated that young man. Diane bit her lip and relapsed into silence.

"You didn't tell me," said Philip presently, "whether or not you found any more flowers this morning."

"Only heaps of wild blackberry," Diane replied briefly. "But the trees were quite as devoid of new birds as Johnny's detective trip of clues."

"Too bad!" sympathized Philip. "I'll go with you in the morning."

"The bump on your head," suggested Diane pointedly, "is growing malignant!"

"By no means!" said Philip lazily. "With the exception of certain memory erasures, it's steadily improving."

"Why," demanded Diane with an unexpected and somewhat resentful flash of reminiscence, "why did you tell me your motor was deaf and dumb and insane when it wasn't?"

"I didn't," said Philip honestly. "If you'll recall our conversation, you'll find I worded that very adroitly."

Thoroughly vexed Diane frowned at the fire.

"Was it necessary to affect callow inexperience and such a happy-go-lucky, imbecile philosophy?" she demanded cuttingly.

"Hum!" admitted Philip humbly. "I'm a salamander."

"And you said you were waiting to be rescued!" she accused indignantly.

Philip sighed.

"Well, in a sense I was. I saw you coming through the trees--and there are times when one must talk." He met her level glance of reproach with one of frank apology. "If I see a man whose face I like, I speak to him. Surely Nature does not flash that subtle sense of magnetism for nothing. If I am to live fully, then must I infuse into my insular existence the electric spark of sympathetic friendship. Why impoverish my existence by a lost opportunity? If I had not alighted that day upon the lake and waited for you to come through the trees--" he fell suddenly quiet, knocking the ashes from his pipe upon the ground beside him.