see I'm clumsy, but I'm crazy for you, Selma."
Emboldened by the obvious feebleness of her opposition, he broadened his
clutch and drew her toward him. "Say you will, sweetheart."

This time she pulled herself free and sat up in the chaise. "Would you
let me do things?" she asked after a moment.

"Do things," faltered Babcock. What could she mean? She had told him on
the way over that her mother had chosen her name from a theatrical
playbill, and it passed through his unsophisticated brain that she might
be thinking of the stage.

"Yes, do something worth while. Be somebody. I've had the idea I could,
if I ever got the chance." Her hands were folded in her lap; there was a
wrapt expression on her thin, nervous face, and a glitter in her keen
eyes, which were looking straight at the moon, as though they would
outstare it in brilliancy.

"You shall be anything you like, if you'll only marry me. What is it
you're wishing to be?"

"I don't know exactly. It isn't anything especial yet. It's the whole
thing. I thought I might find it in my school, but the experience so far
hasn't been--satisfying."

"Troublesome little brats!"

"No, I dare say the fault's in me. If I went to Benham to live it would
be different. Benham must be interesting--inspiring."

"There's plenty of go there. You'd like it, and people would think lots
of you."

"I'd try to make them." She turned and looked at him judicially, but
with a softened expression. Her profile in her exalted mood had
suggested a beautiful, but worried archangel; her full face seemed less
this and wore much of the seductive embarrassment of sex. To Babcock she
seemed the most entrancing being he had ever seen. "Would you really
like to have me come?"

He gave a hoarse ejaculation, and encircling her eagerly with his strong
grasp pressed his lips upon her cheek. "Selma! darling! angel! I'm the
happiest man alive."

"You mustn't do that--yet," she said protestingly.

"Yes, I must; I'm yours, and you're mine,--mine. Aren't you, sweetheart?
There's no harm in a kiss."

She had to admit to herself that it was not very unpleasant after all to
be held in the embrace of a sturdy lover, though she had never intended
that their relations should reach this stage of familiarity so promptly.
She had known, of course, that girls were to look for endearments from
those whom they promised to marry, but her person had hitherto been so
sacred to man and to herself that it was diffi