ndifference, but ended, I am sure,
with intensity: for men are like that! Their fancy works in the absence,
not in the presence, of the girl. I am sure the girl with the red lips
and the deep dark eyes haunted him more and more as time went on!

"At the time, I didn't know just why, but I did know that I wanted
nothing more of Charley. He had never been anything but a man to me--he
was a moment in my life, that was all. But I decided to meet him, for
only in that way could I really finish the affair. Otherwise, if I
merely broke the engagement, he could imagine whatever he wanted to
account for it. No, he must be under no illusion. He must know that I
did not want him!

"I waited for him in front of the house, and on the appointed hour he
arrived, looking very happy and eager. He greeted me with much warmth,
to which I responded coldly. He suggested going inside, but I said: 'No,
I am going away. I have been waiting here to tell you so, in case you
came to-night.'

"'But,' he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone, 'Did not you ask me to come,
and now you say you are going away. Is that fair to me?'

"I shrugged my shoulders and said, 'I don't know, but I'm going.
Good-bye,' and I turned from him and started to walk away. His tone
changed to anger, as he said: 'Now, see here, Marie, I won't stand for
any nonsense of this kind. You can't treat me like this, you know. What
right have you to act in this lying way?'

"I had been walking away and he following, and as he stopped talking, he
took my arm, which I jerked away and impatiently said: 'Well, to be
frank, I don't want you to-night. Whether I have a right to act so, I
don't know or care. Why I asked you to come I don't know, unless it was
because I felt different from what I do now.'

"Charles adopted a more conciliating tone and asked me when he might
come. His interest in me seemed to grow with my resistance.

"'I guess you'd better not come at all,' I said, coolly.

"'But I want to,' he said. 'Do name the night, any night you say.'

"Then I turned to him with angry eyes, and cried out, 'Oh, how stupid
you are! Don't you understand that I don't want you at all?'

"I again started to walk away, but he seized my arm and shouted angrily:
'You cannot leave me like this without explaining some things to me. In
the first place, why did you pull me on last Saturday night, and who are
you to turn me down like this?' I answered, with flashing eyes, 'I owe
you no explanati