the sneer.

"You think he was an amateur robber and an expert prize fighter?"
asked Ruth Tolliver.

It seemed to Ronicky Doone that her voice was perfectly controlled
and calm. Perhaps it was her face that betrayed emotion, for after a
moment of silence, the man answered.

"What's the matter? You're as nervous as a child tonight, Ruth?"

"Isn't there reason enough to make me nervous?" she demanded. "A
robber--Heaven knows what--running at large in the house?"

"H'm!" murmured the man. "Devilish queer that you should get so
excited all at once. No, it's something else. I've trained you too
well for you to go to pieces like this over nothing. What is it,
Ruth?"

There was no answer. Then the voice began again, silken-smooth and
gentle, so gentle and kindly that Ronicky Doone started. "In the old
days you used to keep nothing from me; we were companions, Ruth. That
was when you were a child. Now that you are a woman, when you feel
more, think more, see more, when our companionship should be like a
running stream, continually bringing new things into my life, I find
barriers between us. Why is it, my dear?"

Still there was no answer. The pulse of Ronicky Doone began to
quicken, as though the question had been asked him, as though he
himself were fumbling for the answer.

"Let us talk more freely," went on the man. "Try to open your mind to
me. There are things which you dislike in me; I know it. Just what
those things are I cannot tell, but we must break down these foolish
little barriers which are appearing more and more every day. Not
that I mean to intrude myself on you every moment of your life. You
understand that, of course?"

"Of course," said the girl faintly.

"And I understand perfectly that you have passed out of childhood into
young womanhood, and that is a dreamy time for a girl. Her body is
formed at last, but her mind is only half formed. There is a pleasant
mist over it. Very well, I don't wish to brush the mist away. If I
did that I would take half that charm away from you--that elusive
incompleteness which Fragonard and Watteau tried to imitate, Heaven
knows with how little success. No, I shall always let you live your
own life. All that I ask for, my dear, are certain meeting places. Let
us establish them before it is too late, or you will find one day that
you have married an old man, and we shall have silent dinners. There
is nothing more wretched than that. If it should come about, then