e blamed for not realizing what lay beneath. She was
beginning to recover her spirits and her composure, and her whole
attitude had become demurely impish.

"Settle it then, why don't you?" she taunted sweetly. "I'm sure I
haven't the faintest idea what there is to settle--in that solemn
manner. I only know we're a mile behind the others, and Miss Georgie
will be wondering--"

"You say I'm to settle it, the way I want it settled?"

If Evadna did not intend anything serious, she certainly was a fool not
to read aright his ominously calm tone and his tensely quiet manner. She
must have had some experience in coquetry, but it is very likely that
she had never met a man just like this one. At all events, she tilted
her blonde head, smiled at him daringly, and then made a little grimace
meant to signify her defiance of him and his unwarranted earnestness.

Good Indian leaned unexpectedly, caught her in his arms, and kissed her
three times upon her teasing, smiling mouth, and while she was gasping
for words to voice her amazement he drew back his head, and gazed
sternly into her frightened eyes.

"You can't play with ME," he muttered savagely, and kissed her again.
"This is how I settle it. You've made me want you for mine. It's got to
be love or--hate now. There isn't anything between, for me and you." His
eyes passed hungrily from her quivering lips to her eyes, and the glow
within his own made her breath come faster. She struggled weakly to free
herself, and his clasp only tightened jealously.

"If you had hated me, you wouldn't have stopped back there, and spoken
to me," he said, the words coming in a rush. "Women like to play with
love, I think. But you can't play with me. I want you. And I'm going to
have you. Unless you hate me. But you don't. I'd stake my life on it."
And he kissed her again.

Evadna reached up, felt for her hat, and began pulling it straight,
and Good Indian, recalled to himself by the action, released her with
manifest reluctance. He felt then that he ought never to let her go out
of his arms; it was the only way, it seemed to him, that he could
be sure of her. Evadna found words to express her thoughts, and her
thoughts were as wholly conventional as was the impulse to straighten
her hat.

"We've only known each other a week!" she cried tremulously, while
her gloved fingers felt inquiringly for loosened hairpins. "You've no
right--you're perfectly horrid! You take everything for granted--"