scarcely a thought, being more a dim and inarticulate
desire.

The urge of this desire he could not escape. Day after day it worried
him, and the candy shop and the girl behind the counter continually
obtruded themselves. He fought off the desire. He was afraid and
ashamed to go back to the candy shop. He solaced his fear with, "I ain't
a ladies' man." Not once, nor twice, but scores of times, he muttered
the thought to himself, but it did no good. And by the middle of the
week, in the evening, after work, he came into the shop. He tried to
come in carelessly and casually, but his whole carriage advertised the
strong effort of will that compelled his legs to carry his reluctant body
thither. Also, he was shy, and awkwarder than ever. Genevieve, on the
contrary, was serener than ever, though fluttering most alarmingly
within. He was incapable of speech, mumbled his order, looked anxiously
at the clock, despatched his ice-cream soda in tremendous haste, and was
gone.

She was ready to weep with vexation. Such meagre reward for four days'
waiting, and assuming all the time that she loved! He was a nice boy and
all that, she knew, but he needn't have been in so disgraceful a hurry.
But Joe had not reached the corner before he wanted to be back with her
again. He just wanted to look at her. He had no thought that it was
love. Love? That was when young fellows and girls walked out together.
As for him--And then his desire took sharper shape, and he discovered
that that was the very thing he wanted her to do. He wanted to see her,
to look at her, and well could he do all this if she but walked out with
him. Then that was why the young fellows and girls walked out together,
he mused, as the week-end drew near. He had remotely considered this
walking out to be a mere form or observance preliminary to matrimony. Now
he saw the deeper wisdom in it, wanted it himself, and concluded
therefrom that he was in love.

Both were now of the same mind, and there could be but the one ending;
and it was the mild nine days' wonder of Genevieve's neighborhood when
she and Joe walked out together.

Both were blessed with an avarice of speech, and because of it their
courtship was a long one. As he expressed himself in action, she
expressed herself in repose and control, and by the love-light in her
eyes--though this latter she would have suppressed in all maiden modesty
had she been conscious of the speech her heart pr