his eyes languidly surveying the rim of hills
in the distance.

"I expect that outcome is popular in real life too," he observed.
"Nobody ever hears about it when it turns out some other way."

"I expect love is always a popular subject," she returned smiling.

His eyes were still languid, his gaze still on the rim of distant hills.

"You got any love talk in there--between the man an' the girl?" he
questioned.

"Of course."

"That's mighty interestin'," he returned. "I expect they do a good bit
of mushin'?"

"They do not talk extravagantly," she defended.

"Then I expect it must be pretty good," he returned. "I don't like
mushy love stories." And now he turned and looked fairly at her. "Of
course," he said slyly, "I don't know whether it's necessary or not,
but I've been thinkin' that to write a good love story the writer ought
to be in love. Whoever was writin' would know more about how it feels
to be in love."

She admired the cleverness with which he had led her up to this point,
but she was not to be trapped. She met his eyes fairly.

"I am sure it is not necessary for the writer to be in love," she said
quietly but positively. "I flatter myself that my love scenes are
rather real, and I have not found it necessary to love anyone."

This reply crippled him instantly. "Well, now," he said, eyeing her,
she thought, a bit reproachfully, "that comes pretty near stumpin' me.
But," he added, a subtle expression coming again into his eyes, "you
say you've got only two-thirds finished. Mebbe you'll be in love
before you get it all done. An' then mebbe you'll find that you didn't
get it right an' have to do it all over again. That would sure be too
bad, when you could have got in love an' wrote it real in the first
place."

"I don't think that I shall fall in love," she said laughing.

He looked quickly at her, suddenly grave. "I wouldn't want to think
you meant that," he said.

"Why?" she questioned in a low voice, her laughter subdued by his
earnestness.

"Why," he said steadily, as though stating a perfectly plain fact,
"I've thought right along that you liked me. Of course I ain't been
fool enough to think that you loved me"--and now he reddened a
little--, "but I don't deny that I've hoped that you would."

"Oh, dear!" she laughed; "and so you have planned it all out! And I
was hoping that you would not prove so deep as that. You know," she
went on, "you promised me a long while ago