"I told him to go to the devil," I answered, savagely.

Lute let go of my sleeve.

"You--you--By time, you're stark loony!" he gasped; and collapsed
against the gate post.

I went into the house, up the back stairs to my room, and shut the door.

CHAPTER V

So she was his daughter. I might have guessed it; would have guessed
it if I had possessed the commonest of common-sense. I might have known
that the auto was Colton's. No other machine was likely to be traveling
on the Lower Road at that season of the year. She was the pretty
daughter of whom Dorinda had spoken to Mother. Well, she was pretty
enough; even I had to admit that. But I admitted it grudgingly. I hated
her for her beauty and fine clothes and haughty arrogance. She was the
incarnation of snobbishness.

But to be made twice ridiculous even by the incarnation of snobbishness
was galling. She was to be my next-door neighbor; we were likely to
meet almost anywhere at any time. When I thought of this and of the two
meetings which had already taken place I swore at the blue and white
water-pitcher on my bureau because it did not contain water enough to
drown me. Not that I would commit suicide on her account. She would not
care if I did and certainly I did not care whether she would care or
not; but if I were satisfactorily dead I probably should not remember
what a fool I had made of myself, or Fate had made of me.

Why had I not got out of that library before she came? Oh, if not, why
hadn't I stayed and told her father, in her hearing, and with dignity,
just what I thought of him and his remarks to me? But no; I had run
away. She--or that Victor--would tell of the meeting at the bridge, and
all my independence and the rest of it would be regarded as of a piece
with that, just the big-headed "smartness" of a country boor. In their
eyes I was a nuisance, that was all. A disagreeable one, perhaps, like
the Shore Lane, but a nuisance, one to laugh at and forget--if it could
not be gotten rid of.

Why had I gone with Colton at all? Why hadn't I remained at the
boathouse and there told the King of New York to go to the mischief? or
words to that effect. But I had, at all events, told him that. In spite
of my chagrin I could not help chuckling as I thought of it. To tell Big
Jim Colton to go to the devil was, in its way, I imagined, a privilege
enjoyed by few. It must have shaken his self-satisfaction a trifle.
Well, after all, what did I care? He, a