to handle me. I
must have some affection from you!"

"Richard! I'll not endure this! I am insulted!"

"My kisses an insult? I'm no ice-water lover. You set me crazy. I can't
help myself."

She wrenched herself from his grasp and faced him, her face filled with
outraged fury.

Farr had started to leave the scene. He stopped. The girl was the girl
of the red lips and the dark eyes.

"Don't touch me!" she cried. "The only promise you have had from me,
Richard, is the one my mother has fairly forced from me. I am trying
honestly to like you. I will please my mother and you if I can."

"That's a devil of a thing to say to a man who loves you as I do," he
declared, with anger.

"That is all I can say just now. But if you use me again as you would
pull and haul a girl of the streets, I'll despise you. I give you
warning."

"What sort of books have you been reading, Kate?" he asked,
sarcastically. "Where did you get your idea of what love-making is?
They don't sing serenades under windows these days. They don't kiss
finger-tips and write mush poems. I am going to tell you a few things
you ought to know, as a girl engaged to be married."

Farr stood close by them and in plain sight, but their absorption in
their struggle had left them attention only for each other. He knew
that if he started away while they were talking his presence would be
promptly noted and undoubtedly misjudged.

He set his finger between the leaves of his book and took his hat in his
hand.

"Your pardon!" he pleaded. "I stumbled here quite by accident. Please
suspend conversation on private matters until I can walk out of
earshot."

He stared straight into the eyes of the girl and once more received from
her that frank and wondering gaze which had touched him so strangely
when he had seen her first on the broad highway. His face was white
under the tan. His hands trembled as he replaced his hat. In his
heart he was saying farewell to her and his eyes expressed some of his
emotion.

"You may take your own time, sir," said the girl. "This gentleman and
I have finished our conversation." She passed Farr, looking him up and
down with increasing curiosity and dawning recognition, and when her
escort called to her impatiently, she caught her skirts around her and
ran toward the glade where the others of the party were chattering over
their hampers.

The lover started away slowly and sullenly on her trail, with only a
glance at this blunderin