"Is it such a lot to ask?" pleaded Bob.

"You _do_ ask it then?" repeated Ruth uncomprehendingly.

"Why, Ruth, yes, I do. If a doctor told you not to eat a certain thing,"
Bob began trying to be playful, "that he knew was bad for you and----"

"But you're not my doctor," interrupted Ruth. "That's just it.
You're----It seems all wrong somehow," she broke off, "as if I was a
child, or an ignorant patient of yours, and I'm not. I'm not. Will you
pass it to me, please--the book?"

Bob gave it to her immediately. "You're going to finish it then?" he
asked, alarmed.

"I don't know," said Ruth, wide-eyed, a little alarmed herself, I think.
"I don't know. I must think it over." She crossed the room to the
secretary, opened the glass door, and placed the book on one of the high
shelves. "There," she said, "there it is." Then turning around she
added, "I'll let you know when I decide, Bob. And now I guess I'll go
upstairs, if you don't mind. These walking-shoes are so heavy. Good-by."
And she fled, on the verge of what I feared was tears.

Both Bob and Ruth were so surprised at the appearance of this sudden and
unlooked-for issue that I felt convinced it was their first difference
of opinion. I was worried. I couldn't foretell how it would come out.
Their friendship had been brief--perhaps too brief. Their engagement was
only four weeks old. They loved--I was sure of that--but they didn't
know each other very well. Old friend of Will's and mine as Robert
Jennings is, I knew him to be conservative, steeped in traditions since
childhood. Robert idealizes everything mellowed by age, from pictures
and literature to laws and institutions. Ruth, on the other hand, is a
pronounced modernist. It doesn't make much difference whether it's a hat
or a novel, if it's new and up to date Ruth delights in it.

I poured out my misgivings to Will that night behind closed doors. Will
had never had a high opinion of Ruth.

"Modernism isn't her difficulty, my dear," he remarked. "Selfishness,
with a big S. That's the trouble with Ruth. Society too. Big S. And a
pinch of stubbornness also. She never would take any advice from any
one--self-satisfied little Ruth wouldn't--and poor Bob is the salt of
the earth too. It's a shame. Whoever would have thought fine old Bob
would have fallen into calculating young Ruth's net anyhow!"

"O Will, please. You do misjudge her," I pleaded. "It isn't so. She
isn't calculating. You've said it before, and she