``There is no real reason, I suppose,'' the girl answered, smiling, ``except that life is so very easy for me that I have to invent some woes.I should be better for a few reverses.'' And then she went on in a lower voice, and turning her head away, ``In our family there is no woman older than I am to whom I can go with questions that trouble me.Hope is like a boy, as Isaid, and plays with Ted, and my father is very busy with his affairs, and since my mother died I have been very much alone.A man cannot understand.And I cannot understand why Ishould be speaking to you about myself and my troubles, except--'' she added, a little wistfully, ``that you once said you were interested in me, even if it was as long as a year ago.
And because I want you to be very kind to me, as you have been to Ted, and I hope that we are going to be very good friends.''
She was so beautiful, standing in the shadow with the moonlight about her and with her hand held out to him, that Clay felt as though the scene were hardly real.He took her hand in his and held it for a moment.His pleasure in the sweet friendliness of her manner and in her beauty was so great that it kept him silent.
``Friends!'' he laughed under his breath.``I don't think there is much danger of our not being friends.The danger lies,'' he went on, smiling, ``in my not being able to stop there.''
Miss Langham made no sign that she had heard him, but turned and walked out into the moonlight and down the porch to where the others were sitting.
Young Langham had ordered a native orchestra of guitars and reed instruments from the town to serenade his people, and they were standing in front of the house in the moonlight as Miss Langham and Clay came forward.They played the shrill, eerie music of their country with a passion and feeling that filled out the strange tropical scene around them; but Clay heard them only as an accompaniment to his own thoughts, and as a part of the beautiful night and the tall, beautiful girl who had dominated it.He watched her from the shadow as she sat leaning easily forward and looking into the night.The moonlight fell full upon her, and though she did not once look at him or turn her head in his direction, he felt as though she must be conscious of his presence, as though there were already an understanding between them which she herself had established.She had asked him to be her friend.That was only a pretty speech, perhaps; but she had spoken of herself, and had hinted at her perplexities and her loneliness, and he argued that while it was no compliment to be asked to share another's pleasure, it must mean something when one was allowed to learn a little of another's troubles.