it."

"I--what have I to do with it?"

Dick turned the rusty key in the lock deliberately, and put it in his
pocket, thus closing them into the little musty room which had no
other exit. A branch of flaming maple leaves tapped lightly on the
window.

"You've a whole lot to do with it, Nancy," he said. "It's yours, and
I'm yours, and I want to know how much longer you're going to hedge."

"I'm not hedging," Nancy blazed. "Take that key out of your pocket.
This is moving-picture stuff."

"I know it is. I can't get you to talk to me any other way, so I
thought I'd try main force for a change."

"Well, it is a change," she agreed. "Shall I begin to scream now, or
do you intend to give me some other provocation?"

"Don't be coarse, darling." There is a certain disadvantage in having
known the woman who is the object of your tenderest emotions all your
life, and to be on terms of the most familiar badinage with her. Dick
was feeling this disadvantage acutely at the moment. He took a step
toward her, and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Nancy, don't you
love me?" he said, "don't you really?"

"No," Nancy said deliberately, "I don't, and you know very well I
don't. Unlock that door, and let's be sensible."

"Don't you know, dear, or care that you're hurting me?"

"No, I don't," Nancy said. "You say so, and I hear you, but I don't
really believe it. If I did--"

"If you did--what?"

"Then I'd be sorrier."

"You aren't sorry at all, as it stands."

"I find it's awfully hard to be sorry for you, Dick, in any
connection. There's really nothing pathetic about you, no matter how
tragic you think you are being. You're rich and lucky and healthy. You
have everything you want--"

"Not everything."

"And you live the way you want to, and eat the food you want to--"

"The ruling passion."

"And make the jokes you want to." Nancy literally stuck up a saucy
nose at him. "There is really nothing that I could contribute to your
happiness. I mean nothing important. You are not a poor man whom I
could help to work his way up to the top, or a genius that needs
fostering, or a--"

"Dyspeptic that needs putting on a special diet,--but for all that I
do need a mother's love, Nancy."

"I don't believe you do," Nancy said, a trifle absently. "Unlock the
door, Dick. I don't think Sheila put on that sweater when I told her
to, and I'm afraid she'll get cold."

"Kiss me, Nancy."

"Will you unlock the door if I do?"

"Y