Her position was one of extreme difficulty and delicacy. Sometimes
Mister Masters came near her of his own accord, and remained in bashful
silence; but more often she was obliged to have recourse to "accidents"
in order to bring about propinquity. And even when propinquity had been
established there was never any progress made that could be favorably
noted. Behind her back, for instance, when she was playing tennis and he
was looking on, he was quite bold in his admiration of her. And whereas
most people's eyes when they are watching tennis follow the flight of
the ball, Mister Masters's faithful eyes never left the person of his
favorite player.

One reason for his awful bashfulness and silence was that certain
people, who seemed to know, had told him in the very beginning that it
was only a question of time before little Miss Blythe would become Mrs.
Bob Blagdon. "She's always been fond of him," they said, "and of course
he can give her everything worth having." So when he was with her he
felt as if he was with an engaged girl, and his real feelings not being
proper to express in any way under such circumstances, and his nature
being single and without deceit, he was put in a quandary that defied
solution.

But what was hidden from Mister Masters was presently obvious to Mr.
Blagdon and to others. So the spider, sleepily watching the automatic
enmeshment of the fly, may spring into alert and formidable action at
seeing a powerful beetle blunder into the web and threaten by his
stupid, aimless struggles to set the fly at liberty and to destroy the
whole fabric spun with care and toil.

To a man in love there is no redder danger signal than a sight of the
object of his affections standing or sitting contentedly with another
man and neither of them saying as much as "Boo" to the other. He may,
with more equanimity, regard and countenance a genuine flirtation, full
of laughter and eye-making. The first time Mr. Blagdon saw them together
he thought; the second time he felt; the third time he came forward
graciously smiling. The web might be in danger from the beetle; the fly
at the point of kicking up her heels and flying gayly away; but it may
be in the power of the spider to spin enough fresh threads on the spur
of the moment to rebind the fly, and even to make prisoner the doughty
beetle.

"Don't you ride, Mister Masters?" said Mr. Blagdon.

"Of course," said the shy one, blushing. "But I'm not to do anything
vi