"Perhaps I will improve with practice," he muttered.

He would have seized her again but she eluded him, laughing.

"Thank you, no--" she cried.

He went toward her again, but she sprang behind the bench, Markham
following, both intent upon their game. He had seized her again when
suddenly over their very heads there was a sound of feminine laughter
among the vines from which there immediately emerged a white satin
slipper, a slender white ankle, followed quickly by
another--draperies, and at last Hermia Challoner, who, swinging for a
moment by her hands, dropped breathlessly upon the bench between them.
Markham, whose nose had been narrowly missed by the flying slippers,
drew back in astonishment.

"Hello!" panted Hermia, laughing. "Reggie was chasing me, so I
slipped over the balustrade onto the pergola--" She stopped and looked
with quick intuition from one to the other. "Sorry I blunder'd in
here, though, Olga--awfully sorry. Did I kick you in the nose,
Mr. Markham?"


CHAPTER IX

OUT OF HIS DEPTH

Markham stammered something, but Olga was laughing softly. "Hermia,
darling, you always do go into things feet first, but it's perilous in