to shake hands with Elsie. It seemed to him that she and Blake were lingering a good deal behind.
"Good-night," Elsie said sweetly, "and please when you get into the Ministry, see that I have a place at the Opening."
They had got out of the lighted space round the House of Assembly, and were walking down a dim street bordered with houses and gardens, which led to the Ferry. On one side lay the Botanical Gardens. At the end of the road they had left, and beyond the House of Assembly, were the great gates of Government House with their flaring lamps. The heavy fragrance of datura blossoms weighted the air. Ina and Minnie Pryde walked on alone.
"Won't you take my arm?" said Blake.
She put her hand within his arm, and they walked on for a few moments in silence. He put his hand out and touched her cloak. Are you sure that you are warm enough? the nights are beginning to be cold."
"Yes," said Elsie. There was an odd restrained tenderness in his manner which set her pulses tingling.
"Did you miss me to-day?" he asked suddenly.
"Yes," she answered.
"But you had your usual crowd, your verandah reception, you didn't want me?"
Elsie did not reply for a minute. "It was too early for my verandah reception," she said coldly. "No," she exclaimed presently in a hard tone, "I didn't want you in the least. It was a day off, you know. I wasn't playing the game. I hadn't got to be thinking all the time of the next move."
"The next move," he said seriously, "what is it to be? We have gathered chucky-chuckies and sat on the boat-house steps, and danced, and sat out, and ridden, and done all the usual things that belong to the game of flirtation. There remains only one yet of the minor experiences."
"The minor experiences?"
"The experiences which belong to the initiatory stage of
