re on the Common----"

"You blessed child!" I cried, dropping on one knee beside her.

She laid her hand on my head, looking at me for a long while in
silence.

"I can not help it," she said. "I really care nothing for what folk
say. All this that we have done--and my indiscretion--nay, that we have
run away and I am here with you--all this alarms me not at all.
Indeed," she added earnestly, "I do truly find you so agreeable that I
should have fretted had you gone away alone. Now I am honest with
myself and you, Carus--this matter has sobered me into gravest
reflection. I have the greatest curiosity concerning you--I had from
the very first--spite of all that childish silliness we committed. I
don't know what it is about you that I can not let you go until I learn
more of you. Perhaps I shall--we have a week here before a flag goes
north, have we not?" she asked naively.

"The flag goes at your pleasure, Elsin."

"Then it is my pleasure that we remain a while--and see--and see--" she
murmured, musing eyes fixed on the sunny window. "I would we could fall
in love, Carus!"

"We are pledged to try," I said gaily.

"Aye, we must try. Lord-a-mercy on me, for my small head is filled with
silliness, and my heart beats only for the vain pleasure of the moment.
A hundred times since I have known you, Carus, I would have sworn I
loved you--then something that you say or do repels me--or something,
perhaps, of my own inconstancy--and only that intense curiosity
concerning you remains. That is not love, is it?"

"I think not."

"Yet look how I set my teeth and drove blindly full tilt at Destiny
when I thought you stood in peril! Do women do such things for
friendship's sake?"

"Men do--I don't know. You are a faultless friend, at any rate. And on
that friendship we must build."

"With your indifference and my vanity and inconstancy? God send it be
no castle of cards, Carus! Tell me, have you, too, a stinging curiosity
concerning me? Do you desire to fathom my shallow spirit, to learn what
every passing smile might indicate, to understand me when I am silent,
to comprehend me when I converse with others?"

"I--I have thought of these things, Elsin. Never having understood
you--judging hastily, too--and being so intimately busy with the--the
matters you know of--I never pursued my studies far--deeming you
betrothed and--and----"

"A coquette?"

"A child, Elsin, heart-free and capricious, contradictory, imperious,