then I was sorry--truly sorry, because I was grateful always for his
gentle goodness to me, and never meant to hurt him. But he represented
the entire sex to me, and I was learning all I could, thinking, as I once
told him, that the knowledge might be useful on the stage some time, and
I wondered at the very fury my words provoked in him.

We quarrelled sometimes like spiteful children, as when I, startled into
laughter by hearing his voice break in a speech, unfortunately excused
myself by saying: "It was just like a young rooster, you know!" and he,
white with anger, cried: "You're a solid mass of rudeness, to laugh at a
misfortune; you have no breeding!"

This brought from me the rejoinder: "I know it, but you would have shown
better breeding yourself had you not told me of it!"

And then he was on his knee in the entrance, begging forgiveness, and
saying his "cursed, cracking voice made a madman of him!"

As it really did, for he often accused people of guying him if they did
but clear their own throats. And so we went on till something in his
manner--his increased efforts to find me alone at rehearsal, for as I was
without a room-mate in Columbus, I could not receive him at home, and I
truly think he would have kept silence forever rather than have urged me
to break any conventional rule of propriety--this something gave me the
idea that Frank was going to be--well--explicit, that--that--I was going
to be proposed to according to established form.

Now, though a proposal of marriage is a thing to look forward to with
desire, to look back upon with pride, it is also a thing to avoid when it
is in the immediate future, and I so successfully evaded his efforts to
find me alone, at the theatre or at some friend's house, that he was
forced at last to speak at night, while escorting me home.

I lodged in a quiet little street, opening out of the busier, more noisy
Kinsman Street. In our front yard there lived a large, greedy old tree,
which had planted its foot firmly in the very middle of the path, thus
forcing everyone to _chasse_ around it who wished to enter the house. Its
newly donned summer greenery extended far over the gate, and as the moon
shone full and fair the "set" was certainly appropriate.

We reached the gate, and I held out my hand for my bag--that small
catch-all of a bag that, in the hand of the actress, is the outward and
visible sign of her profession; but he let the bag slip to the walk and
ca