sounds horribly indigestible and unattractive, doesn't it?" Miss
Hugonin babbled, in a tumult of fear and disappointment. He was about
to spoil their friendship now; men were so utterly inconsiderate. "I'm
a little cold," said she, mendaciously, "I really must go in."

He detained her. "Surely," he breathed, "you must know what I have so
long wanted to tell you--"

"I haven't the _least_ idea," she protested, promptly. "You can tell
me all about it in the morning. I have some accounts to cast up
to-night. Besides, I'm not a good person to tell secrets to.
You--you'd much better not tell me. Oh, really, Mr. Kennaston," she
cried, earnestly, "you'd much better not tell me!"

"Ah, Margaret, Margaret," he pleaded, "I am not adamant. I am only a
man, with a man's heart that hungers for you, cries for you, clamours
for you day by day! I love you, beautiful child--love you with a
poet's love that is alien to these sordid days, with a love that is
half worship. I love you as Leander loved his Hero, as Pyramus loved
Thisbe. Ah, child, child, how beautiful you are! You are fairest of
created women, child--fair as those long-dead queens for whose smiles
old cities burned and kingdoms were lightly lost. I am mad for love of
you! Ah, have pity upon me, Margaret, for I love you very tenderly!"

He delivered these observations with appropriate fervour.

"Mr. Kennaston," said she, "I am sorry. We got along so nicely before,
and I was _so_ proud of your friendship. We've had such good times
together, you and I, and I've liked your verses so, and I've liked
you--Oh, please, _please_, let's keep on being just friends!" Margaret
wailed, piteously.

"Friends!" he cried, and gave a bitter laugh. "I was never friends
with you, Margaret. Why, even as I read my verses to you--those
pallid, ineffectual verses that praised you timorously under varied
names--even then there pulsed in my veins the riotous paean of love,
the great mad song of love that shamed my paltry rhymes. I cannot be
friends with you, child! I must have all or nothing. Bid me hope or
go!"

Miss Hugonin meditated for a moment and did neither.

"Beautiful," she presently queried, "would you be very, very much
shocked if I descended to slang?"

"I think," said he, with an uncertain smile, "that I could endure it."

"Why, then--cut it out, beautiful! Cut it out! I don't believe a word
you've said, in the first place; and, anyhow, it annoys me to have you
talk to me li