"Come," he said decidedly, "let's try the hammock."
"Really, Mr. Sidney," she answered, smiling, "I know when I'm tired."
But he proceeded up the veranda steps and she followed him into the wind-break.
"I'm willing," he said, "to go two steps forward and one back in my acquaintance with you; but I draw the line at two back. It sounded very friendly a few minutes ago when you called me Phil. I hope you'll see your way clear to doing it again sometime."
While he spoke, Philip was testing the ropes of the hammock.
"Oh, I'm sure I didn't call you Phil," she said in surprise.
"I think you did," she replied, a delicate formality in her voice; "but the circumstances certainly excused it."
"I hope they will continue to excuse it, for I feel it coming on that I shall do it again. You took off Miss Fabian with your tailor gown." He turned and faced her. "Didn't you?" he added.
She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled again. "Perhaps."
"Then get right down on this couch, little Kathleen," he ordered, smiling, and after a moment's hesitation the girl obeyed. He drew over her the linen coverlet that had lain on a neighboring chair, and looked, not at her, but with fascinated eyes through the broad sheets of glass which guarded the hammock from the wind.
"Now, if you can feel sober enough to sleep in this intoxicating place, do so," he said.
Kathleen, propped high on cushions, folded her arms beneath her head.
"But isn't it questionable courtesy for both your hostesses to go to sleep, no matter how sober they may be?" she asked.
"There's another hostess here," he returned, with a brilliant look down into her uplifted eyes.
"My best girl," said Phil, moving out of the wind-break.
Kathleen smiled. "Yes, I like her, too," she answered. "I never had a lonely moment on this island in my life; so I shall not worry about you. There's another hammock around on the other side of the porch. Why don't you go to sleep yourself?"
"Because I'm afraid I should wake up in Gramercy Park," returned Phil, and, vaulting over the porch railing, he disappeared from Kathleen's view.
Walking to the back of the house, he gazed down at the waters of the cove, then across the field to the long low white farmhouse where he had found Eliza, then back again at the water. "Miss Manning said I should stay here if I had to live under a rock," he reflected.