ace came into plain view. A refined, handsome face, dark
and serious. He had dark-brown eyes--and Miss Hastings did not like
brown eyes in a man. She thought that men should have gray or blue or
greenish eyes, and if they were cruel in their love of power she liked
it the better.

"Hello, Dave," she cried in a pleasant, friendly voice. She was
posed--in the most unconscious of attitudes--upon a rustic bench so
that her extraordinary figure was revealed at its most attractive.

The young man halted before her, his breath coming quickly--not
altogether from the exertion of his steep and rapid climb. "Jen, I'm
mad about you," he said, his brown eyes soft and luminous with passion.
"I've done nothing but think about you in the week you've been back. I
didn't sleep last night, and I've come up here as early as I dared to
tell you--to ask you to marry me."

He did not see the triumph she felt, the joy in having subdued another
of these insolently superior males. Her eyes were discreetly veiled;
her delightful mouth was arranged to express sadness.

"I thought I was an ambition incarnate," continued the young man,
unwittingly adding to her delight by detailing how brilliant her
conquest was. "I've never cared a rap about women--until I saw you. I
was all for politics--for trying to do something to make my fellow men
the better for my having lived. Now--it's all gone. I want you, Jen.
Nothing else matters."

As he paused, gazing at her in speechless longing, she lifted her
eyes--simply a glance. With a stifled cry he darted forward, dropped
beside her on the bench and tried to enfold her in his arms. The veins
stood out in his forehead; the expression of his eyes was terrifying.

She shrank, sprang up. His baffled hands had not even touched her.
"David Hull!" she cried, and the indignation and the repulsion in her
tone and in her manner were not simulated, though her artfulness
hastened to make real use of them. She loved to rouse men to frenzy.
She knew that the sight of their frenzy would chill her--would fill her
with an emotion that would enable her to remain mistress of the
situation.

At sight of her aversion his eyes sank. "Forgive me," he muttered.
"You make me--CRAZY."

"I!" she cried, laughing in angry derision. "What have I ever done to
encourage you to be--impertinent?"

"Nothing," he admitted. "That is, nothing but just being yourself."

"I can't help that, can I?"

"No," said he, add