eeply flushed herself, but her eyes
were as clear as clear water, and she ran with her usual fawn-like
swiftness. Arnold dropped on the bench, waving her a speechless
reassurance. With his first breath he said, "Gee! but you can hit it
up, for a girl!"

"What's the _matter_ with you?" Sylvia asked again, sitting down
beside him.

"Nothing! Nothing!" he panted. "My wind! It's confoundedly short."
He added a moment later, "It's tobacco--this is the sort of time the
cigarettes get back at you, you know!" The twilight dropped slowly
about them like a thin, clear veil. He thrust out his feet, shapely in
their well-made white shoes, surveyed them with dissatisfaction, and
added with moody indifference: "And cocktails too. They play the
dickens with a fellow's wind."

Sylvia said nothing for a moment, looking at him by no means
admiringly. Her life in the State University had brought her into such
incessant contact with young men that the mere fact of sitting
beside one in the twilight left her unmoved to a degree which Mr.
Sommerville's mother would have found impossible to imagine. When she
spoke, it was with an impatient scorn of his weakness, which might
have been felt by a fellow-athlete: "What in the world makes you do
it, then?"

"Why not?" he said challengingly.

"You've just said why not--it spoils your tennis. It must spoil your
polo. Was that what spoiled your baseball in college? You'd be twice
the man if you wouldn't."

"Oh, what's the use?" he said, an immense weariness in his voice.

"What's the use of anything, if you are going to use _that_ argument?"
said Sylvia, putting him down conclusively.

He spoke with a sudden heartfelt simplicity, "Damn 'f I _know_,
Sylvia." For the first time in all the afternoon, his voice lost its
tonelessness, and rang out with the resonance of sincerity.

She showed an unflattering surprise. "Why, I didn't know you ever
thought about such things."

He looked at her askance, dimly amused. "High opinion you have of me!"

She looked annoyed at herself and said with a genuine good-will in her
voice, "Why, Arnold, you _know_ I've always liked you."

"You like me, but you don't think much of me," he diagnosed her, "and
you show your good sense." He looked up at the picturesque white
house, spreading its well-proportioned bulk on the top of the terraced
hillside before them. "I hope Madrina is looking out of a window and
sees us here, our heads together in the twilight.