She turned to him with a puzzled air. "I wonder Violet hasn't been to see me, Nick. Where is she?"
His flickering eyes were searching the stream. "She's gone away," he said.
"Haven't a notion," he said indifferently.
"I wonder I haven't heard," mused Olga. "I suppose she hasn't written?"
"Not to my knowledge," said Nick. His attention was obviously still fixed upon the babbling water.
"Oh, well, she hardly ever does write," commented Olga. "And you don't know where she is gone?"
At this point his preoccupation seemed to strike her. "What are you looking at?" she asked.
He nodded towards a clump of ferns that fringed the bank. "I thought I saw my friend the scarlet butterfly. There is a beauty lives hereabouts. Yes; by Jove, there he is! See him, Olga?"
Even as he spoke the scarlet butterfly emerged from its hiding place and fluttered down the stream.
Olga uttered a sharp cry that brought Nick's eyes to her face. "What's the matter, kiddie? What is it?"
For a moment she was too overcome to tell him. Then: "Oh, Nick," she said, "I saw that butterfly the last time I was here. It was fluttering along just like that. And then--all of a sudden--a dreadful green dragon-fly flashed out on it, and--and--I didn't see it any more."
"Cheer up!" said Nick. "Evidently it escaped."
"Oh, I wonder!" she said, in a voice of puzzled distress. "I do wonder!"
His shrewd glance returned to the moth quivering like a flower petal in the breeze. "Well, there it is!" he said cheerily. "Let's give it the benefit of the doubt."
Her face did not wholly clear. "I wish I knew," she said. "Do you really think it can be the same, Nick?"
"I've never seen more than one," said Nick, "so it would appear to be a more artful dodger than you took it for. I don't see friend dragon-fly anywhere about."
She shuddered suddenly and convulsively. "No, and I hope he isn't here. Do you know what he made me think of? Max; so strong, so merciless, and so horribly clever."
"Oh, but in a different way," protested Olga.
Again his quick eyes flashed over her. "I think you are rather hard on Max myself," he said unexpectedly.
"Yes, you, my dear. You've no right to regard him in that unwholesome light. He doesn't deserve it. He is quite a decent sort; a little too managing perhaps, but that's just his way. You might go further and fare much worse."