there is of it."

"No!" She stopped, and then she asked, with a kind of gentle
bewilderment: "What did you want to tell me for?"

"To let you break with me--if you wanted to."

"Don't you care for me any more?"

"Yes, more than ever I did. But I'm not fit for you, Cynthia. Mr.
Westover said I wasn't. I told him about it--"

"What did he say?"

"That I ought to break with you."

"But if you broke with her?"

"He told me to stick to her. He was right about you, Cynthy. I'm not fit
for you, and that's a fact."

"What was it about that girl? Tell me everything." She spoke in a tone of
plaintive entreaty, very unlike the command she once used with Jeff when
she was urging him to be frank with her and true to himself. They had
come to her father's house and she freed her hand from his arm again, and
sat down on the step before the side door with a little sigh as of
fatigue.

"You'll take cold," said Jeff, who remained on foot in front of her.

"No," she said, briefly. "Go on."

"Why," Jeff began, harshly, and with a note of scorn for himself and his
theme in his voice, "there isn't any more of it, but there's no end to
her. I promised Mr. Westover I shouldn't whitewash myself, and I sha'n't.
I've been behaving badly, and it's no excuse for me because she wanted me
to. I began to go for her as soon as I saw that she wanted me to, and
that she liked the excitement. The excitement is all that she cared for;
she didn't care for me except for the excitement of it. She thought she
could have fun with me, and then throw me over; but I guess she found her
match. You couldn't understand such a girl, and I don't brag of it. All
she cared for was to flirt with me, and she liked it all the more because
I was a jay and she could get something new out of it. I can't explain
it; but I could see it right along. She fooled herself more than she
fooled me."

"Was she--very good-looking?" Cynthia asked, listlessly.

"No!" shouted Jeff. "She wasn't good-looking at all. She was dark and
thin, and she had little slanting eyes; but she was graceful, and she
knew how to make herself go further than any girl I ever saw. If she came
into a room, she made you look at her, or you had to somehow. She was
bright, too; and she had more sense than all the other girls there put
together. But she was a fool, all the same." Jeff paused. "Is that
enough?"

"It isn't all."

"No, it isn't all. We didn't meet much at first, but I got to walkin