did not make much difference
to him whether he ever reached his destination or not.

Thus Jerome--but what of Mell? Every medullary thread, every
centripetal and centrifugal filament in her entire body was excited
over his coming. She was flushed, and so hot and flurried, and had
been waiting for him, it seemed to her, twelve months at least, and it
enraged her now to see him sauntering so slowly toward her, just as if
they had parted five minutes ago. Poor Mell, after her experiences of
the past three days, was in that condition of body when a trifle
presses upon one's nervous forces with all the weight of a mountain.
Irritated, she returned his good morning coldly.

"Dear me, Mr. Devonhough! Is it really you? Why did you come? I did
not send you word I would be here."

"No, you did not. Nevertheless, I knew you would."

"Nevertheless, you knew nothing of the sort! How can you say that? I
had a strong notion not to come."

Jerome made a gesture of incredulity.

"Oh, a notion! I dare say. Girls live on notions, bonbons, sugar-plums,
taffy, and what not; a pound of sweetened flattery to every half
ounce of wholesome truth. But laying all notions aside, you will always
come, Mellville, when I send for you."

"How dare you," began Mell, nettled to the quick and purposed to give
him an emphatic piece of her mind, and then ignominiously breaking
down, constrained, dismayed, crimsoning to the tips of her ears,
paling to the curves of her lips, and wishing she had died before she
left the farm-house that morning.

"And now I have offended you," said Jerome drawing nearer, "and I did
not mean to do that, pretty one! I cannot help teasing you, sometimes,
because when you are teased your face has that innocent, grieved
expression of a thwarted child, which I do so dearly love to see. And
I must, perforce, do something in self-defence, you have been so cruel
to me." His tones were low, now, and as oily as a lubricating
life-buoy. "I have waited for you one hour each day; I have gone away
after every waiting, desolate and unhappy. Don't you know, when two
people think of each other as we do, when two people love each other
as we do, that separation is the worst form of misery? Then why have
you been so cruel, Mell?"

Peeping under the fluted archway of the white sun-bonnet for an
answer, his face came in dangerous nearness to its wearer; their
quickened breath united in a symphony of sweet sighs, their quickened
pulses