n.

"Flora, my darling ... help me!" I cried, half-sobbing.

"What do you mean?" laughing.

"I love you!"

"I know all _you_ want!"

"But I do love you ... see...."

And I prostrated myself, in a frenzy, at her feet.

"Say, you're the queerest kid I've ever known."

And she walked out of the room abruptly, while I rose to my feet and sat
in a chair, dejected. She came in again, a twinkle in her eye.

"Don't torture me, Flora!" I pleaded, "either send me away, or--"

"Stop pestering me ... let's talk ... read me some of that Tennyson you
gave me...." and I began reading aloud, for there was nothing else she
would for the moment, have me do....

* * * * *

"You're a poet," whimsically, "I want you to write some letters to me
because I know you must write beautiful."

"--if you will only let me love you!"

"Well, ain't I lettin' you love me?"

A perverse look came into her face, a thought, an idea that pleased
her--

"I've lots and lots of letters from men," she began, "men that have been
in love with me."

"Oh!" I exclaimed weakly ... she had just expressed a desire to add some
of mine to the pack ... the next thing that she followed up with gave me
a start--

"Your father--"

"My father?--" I echoed.

"He's written me the best letters of all ... wait a minute ... I'll read
a little here and there to you." And, gloating and triumphant, and
either not seeing or, in her vulgarity, not caring what effect the
reading of my father's love letters would have on me, she began reading
ardent passages aloud. "See!" She showed me a page to prove that it was
in his handwriting. The letters told a tale easy to understand. She was
so eager in her vanity that she read on and on without seeing in my
face what, seen, would have made her stop.

A frightful trembling seized me, a loathing, a horror. This was my
father's woman ... and ... I!...

I sat on, dumbfounded, paralysed. I remembered his stories of trips to
T---- and other places on supposed lodge business ... unluckily, I also
remembered that several times Flora had been off on trips at the same
time.

"Just listen to this, will you!" and she began at another passage.

She was so absorbed in her reading that she did not see how I was on my
feet ... had seized my hat ... was going.

"I'm sorry, Flora, but I've got to go!"

"What?" looking up and surprised, "--got to go?"

"Yes ... Yes ... I must--must go!" my lips tr