k. Why wouldn't I?" The touch of her hand, the new
softness, almost pathos of her mood touched him, appealed to the chivalry
always latent in a Holiday.

He heard her breath come quickly, saw her full bosom heave, felt the warm
pressure of her hand. He wanted to put his arm around her but he did not
follow the impulse. The code of Holiday "noblesse oblige" was operating.

"I wish I could believe that," Madeline sighed, looking down into the
water which whirled and eddied in white foam and splash over the rocks.
"I'd like to think you really wanted to come--really cared about seeing
me again. I know I'm not your kind."

He started involuntarily at her voicing unexpectedly his own
recent thought.

"Oh, you needn't be surprised," she threw at him half angrily. "Don't you
suppose I know that better than you do. Don't you suppose I know what the
girls you are used to look like? Well, I do. I've watched 'em, on the
street, on the campus, in church, everywhere. I've even seen your sister
and watched her, too. Somebody pointed her out to me once when she had
made a hit in a play and I've seen her at Glee Club concerts and at
vespers in the choir. She is lovely--lovely the way I'd like to be. It
isn't that she's any prettier. She isn't. It's just that she's
different--acts different--looks different--dresses different from me. I
can't make myself like her and the rest, no matter how I try. And I do
try. You don't know how hard I try. I got this dress because I saw your
sister Tony wearing a pink dress once. I thought maybe it would make me
look more like her. But it doesn't. It makes me look more _not_ like her
than ever, doesn't it?" she appealed rather disconcertingly. "It's
horrid. I hate it."

"I don't know much about girls' dresses," said Ted. "But, now you speak
of it, maybe it would be prettier if it were a little--" he paused for a
word--"quieter," he decided on. "Do you ever wear white? Tony wears it a
lot and I think she looks nice in it."

"I've got a white dress. I thought about putting it on to-day. But
somehow it didn't look quite nice enough. I thought--well, I thought I
looked handsomer in the pink. I wanted to look pretty--for you." The last
was very low--scarcely audible.

"You look good to me all right," said the boy heartily and he meant it.
He thought she looked prettier at the moment than she had looked at any
time since he had made her acquaintance.

Perhaps he was right. She had laid aside for on