random
answers showed that she paid little attention to what he was saying.
He was mentally registering a vow never again to permit himself to be
committed to a tete-a-tete with her, when she abruptly broke the silence
which had succeeded his conversational efforts. Her voice was
curiously unsteady, and she seemed at first to have some difficulty in
articulating, and had to go back and repeat her first words. What she
said was:--

"It was very good in you to come home with me to-night. It is a great
pleasure to me."

"You 're ironical this evening, Miss Elliott," he replied, laughing, and
the least bit nettled.

It was bore enough doing the polite to a girl who had nothing on her
mind without being gibed by her to boot.

"I 'm not ironical," she answered. "I should make poor work at irony. I
meant just what I said."

"The goodness was on your part in letting me come," he said, mollified
by the unmistakable sincerity of her tone, but somewhat embarrassed
withal at the decidedly flat line of remark she had chosen.

"Oh, no," she replied; "the goodness was not on my side. I was only too
glad of your company, and might as well own it. Indeed, I will confess
to telling a fib to one young man who offered to see me home, merely
because I hoped the idea of doing so would occur to you."

This plump admission of partiality for his society fairly staggered
Arthur. Again he thought, "She must be quizzing me;" and, to make sure,
stole a sidelong glance at her. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, and
the pallor and the tense expression of her face indicated that she was
laboring under strong excitement. She certainly did not look like one in
a quizzing mood.

"I am very much flattered," he managed to say.

"I don't know whether you feel so or not," she replied. "I'm afraid you
don't feel flattered at all, but I--I wanted to--tell you."

The pathetic tremor of her voice lent even greater significance to her
words than in themselves they would have conveyed.

She was making a dead set at him. There was not a shadow of doubt any
longer about that. As the full realization of his condition flashed upon
him, entirely alone with her and a long walk before them, the strength
suddenly oozed out of his legs, he felt distinctly cold about the spine,
and the perspiration started out on his forehead. His tongue clung to
the roof of his mouth, and he could only abjectly wonder what was coming
next. It appeared that nothing more was