--"You'll never get
anywhere that way!" The buggy was abreast of her now. "Do get in! I
won't--touch you."

She turned upon him with all the fire of her youth.

"You--a respectable man--with a wife--and my father's friend--you!"

"Yes, I know," he said, like a whipped dog. "But don't run off--I'll get
out and let you drive back alone."

There was a cart coming on slowly behind them. Milly marched past the
buggy haughtily and walked towards it. Snowden followed close behind,
pleading, apologizing. She knew that he was afraid she would speak to
the driver of the cart, and despised him.

"Milly, don't," he groaned.

She walked stiffly by the cart, whose driver eyed the scene with a slow
grin. She paid no attention, however, to Snowden's entreaties. She was
secretly proud of herself for her magnanimity in not appealing to the
stranger, for the manner in which she was conducting herself. But after
a mile or so, it became quite dark and she felt weary. She stumbled, sat
down beside the road. The buggy stopped automatically.

"If you'll only get in and drive home, Miss Ridge," Snowden said humbly,
and prepared to dismount. "It's a good eight miles to the boulevard and
your folks will be worried."

With a gesture that waved him back to his place Milly got into the buggy
and the horse started.

"I didn't mean--I am sorry--"

"Don't speak to me ever again, Mr. Snowden," Milly flamed. She sat bolt
upright in her corner of the seat, drawing her skirt under her as if
afraid it might touch him. Snowden drove rapidly, and thus without a
word exchanged they returned. As they came near the corner of West
Laurence Avenue, Snowden spoke again,--

"I know you can't forgive me--but I hope you won't let your father know.
It would hurt him and--"

It was a very mean thing to say, and she knew it. Afterwards she thought
of many spirited and apposite words she might have spoken, but at the
moment all she could do was to fling herself haughtily out of the buggy
as it drew up before the curb and without a word or glance march stiffly
up the steps, where her father sat smoking his after-dinner cigar.

"Why, Milly," he exclaimed, "where've you been?"

She stalked past him into the house. She could hear her father ask
Snowden to stop and have some supper, and Snowden's refusal.

"You'll be over for a game later, Snow?"

"Guess not, Horace," and the buggy drove off.

Then for the first time it came over her what it would mean if