y, right off. My name's not Anita--it's Annie. I took
to pretending it's Anita because--it does seem sort of silly, but I
got to tell you--because I saw it in the movies, and it seemed sort of
cute and different, and Annie's such a plain, common name. But I
couldn't let you go on talking like that and calling me by it, now
could I?"

The mutinous young waiter brought their food and thumped it
truculently down before them.

"Look out!" said Dean with sudden violent harshness, the vein in his
forehead darkening ominously. "What do you think you're doing, feeding
cattle?"

The boy drew back in confusion, and Annie exclaimed: "Oh, he didn't
mean it anything against us--he's just mad because he has to be a
waiter."

"Well, he'd better be careful; kids can be too smart Aleck."

The little gust had deflected them away from their own affairs. But
Annie brought them back. She leaned toward him.

"You make me kind of afraid of you. If you ever spoke to me like that
it'd just about kill me."

He was contrite. "Why, I couldn't ever speak to you like that, honey;
it just made me mad the way he banged things down in front of you. I
don't want people to treat you like that."

"And you look so fierce, too--scowling so all the time."

He put up a brown finger and touched his savage vein.

"Now, now--you mustn't mind my look. All the Dean men are marked like
that; it's in the blood. It don't mean a thing." He smiled winningly.
"I reckon if you're beginning to scold me you're going to marry me,
huh?"

Something very sweet and womanly leaped in Annie's blue eyes.

"I--I reckon I am," she said, and then confessed herself a brave
adventurer and philosopher in one. "Yes, I'd be a fool to sit round
and make excuses and pretend it wouldn't do to be so out of the
ordinary when here you are and here I am, and it means--our whole
lives. I don't care, either, if I didn't ever set eyes on you till
to-day--I know you're all right and that what you say's true. And I
feel as if I'd known you for years and years."

"That's the way I felt about you the minute I looked at you. Oh"--he
gave a vast and shaking sigh--"I can't hardly believe my luck. Eat up
your supper and let's get out of here. Maybe there's some stores open
yet and I could buy you a ring."

"And I have to be in my boarding house by half-past ten," offered
Annie, "or I'll be locked out. What the girls are going to say when I
come in and tell 'em----" She looked at him with