ntly.

"Yes, better than ever."

"Because what you have done means the nicest sort of friendship, you
see. You can't escape its duties and responsibilities now, Mr. Siward.
I shall expect you to spend the greater part of your life in devotedly
doing things for me. Besides, I am now privileged to worry you with
advice. Oh, you have invested me with all sorts of powers now!"

He nodded.

She sprang to her feet, flushed, smiling, a trifle excited.

"Is it all over, and are we the very ideals of friends?" she asked.

"The very ideals."

"You are nice!" she said impulsively, holding out both gloveless hands.
He held them, she looking at him very sweetly, very confidently.

"Allons! Without malice?" she asked.

"Without malice."

"Without afterthoughts?"

"Without afterthoughts."

"And--you are content?" persuasively.

"Of course not," he said.

"Oh, but you must be."

"I must be," he repeated obediently.

"And you are! Say it!"

"But it does not make me unhappy not to be contented--"

"Say it, please; or--do you desire me to be unhappy?"

Her small, smooth hands lying between his, they stood confronting one
another in the golden light. She might easily have brought the matter
to an end; and why she did not, she knew no more than a kitten waking to
consciousness under its first caress.

"Say it," she repeated, laughing uncertainly back into his smiling eyes
of a boy.

"Say what?"

"That you are contented."

"I can't."

"Mr. Siward, it is unkind, it is shameless--"

"I know it; I am that sort."

"Then I am sorry for you. Look at that!" turning her left hand in his so
that the jewel on the third finger caught the light.

"I see it."

"And yet--"

"And yet."

"That," she observed with composure, "is sheer obstinacy. ... Isn't it?"

"It is what I said it was: a hopeful discontent."

"How can it be?" impatiently now, for the long, unaccustomed contact was
unnerving her--yet she made no motion to withdraw her hands. "How can
you really care for me? Do you actually believe that--devotion--comes
like that?"

"Exactly like that."

"So suddenly? It is impossible!" with a twist of her pretty shoulders.

"How did it come--to you?" he asked between his teeth.

Then her face grew scarlet and her eyes grew dark, and her hands
contracted in his--tightened, twisted fingers entangled, until, with
a little sob, she swayed toward him and he caught her. An instant, a
minute--more, perhaps, she di