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"Aye, we must try Lord-a-mercy on me, for my small head is filled with silliness, and my heart beats only for the vain pleasure of the moment A hundred times since I have known you, Carus, I would have sworn I loved you--then so, perhaps, ofyou remains That is not love, is it?"

"I think not"

"Yet look how I set ht you stood in peril! Do wos for friendship's sake?"

"Men do--I don't know You are a faultless friend, at any rate And on that friendship we must build"

"With your indifference and my vanity and inconstancy? God send it be no castle of cards, Carus! Tellme? Do you desire to fathoht indicate, to understand me when I am silent, to coht of these things, Elsin Never having understood you--judging hastily, too--and being so intimately busy with the--theyou betrothed and--and----"

"A coquette?"

"A child, Elsin, heart-free and capricious, contradictory, i----"

"O Carus!"

"I meant no reproach," I said hastily "A nectarine requires tiht paints it so prettily in all its unripe, flawless symmetry And I have--I have lived all my life in sober company My father was old, my mother placid and saddened by the loss of all her children save e except ent to Albany, where I learned to bear myself in company At Johnson Hall, at Varick's, at Butlersbury, I was but a shy lad, warned by aiety that I would gladly have joined in And so I know nothing of women--nor did I learn much in New York, where the surface of life is so prettily polished that iteyes"

I seatedup at the sweet face on the bed's edge framed by the chintz

"Did you never conceive an affection?" she asked, watching me

"Why, yes--for a day or two I think women tire of me"

"No, you tire of the," I said quietly

"Do you mean when they fall in love with you?" she asked

"They don't Soht in my confusion"