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She could not have guessed the depths it veiled. His cheeks were pink, his hands not large, but
sinewy and strong. Her pale, uncertain, lymphatic body extracted a form of dynamic energy from
him even at this range.
"I don't think you ought to come to see me so often. People won't think well of it." She ventured
to take a distant, matronly air-- the air she had originally held toward him.
"People," he said, "don't worry about people. People think what you want them to think. I wish
you wouldn't take that distant air toward me."
"Why?"
"Because I like you."
"But you mustn't like me. It's wrong. I can't ever marry you. You're too young. I'm too old."
"Don't say that!" he said, imperiously. "There's nothing to it. I want you to marry me. You know I
do. Now, when will it be?"
"Why, how silly! I never heard of such a thing!" she exclaimed. "It will never be, Frank. It can't
be!"
"Why can't it?" he asked.
"Because--well, because I'm older. People would think it strange. I'm not long enough free."
"Oh, long enough nothing!" he exclaimed, irritably. "That's the one thing I have against you--you
are so worried about what people think. They don't make your life. They certainly don't make
mine. Think of yourself first. You have your own life to make. Are you going to let what other
people think stand in the way of what you want to do?"
"But I don't want to," she smiled.
He arose and came over to her, looking into her eyes.
"Well?" she asked, nervously, quizzically.
He merely looked at her.
"Well?" she queried, more flustered.
He stooped down to take her arms, but she got up.
"Now you must not come near me," she pleaded, determinedly. "I'll go in the house, and I'll not
let you come any more. It's terrible! You're silly! You mustn't interest yourself in me."
She did show a good deal of determination, and he desisted. But for the time being only. He
called again and again. Then one night, when they had gone inside because of the mosquitoes,
and when she had insisted that he must stop coming to see her, that his attentions were
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