alf-like transports of Bunbury Gray. She
had felt, if she had not returned them, the furtively significant
pressure of men's hands in the gaiety and whirl of things; ardent and
chuckle-headed youth had declared itself in conservatories and in
corners; one impetuous mauling from a smitten Harvard boy of eighteen
had left her furiously vexed with herself for her passive attitude while
the tempest passed. True, she had vigorously reproved him later. She
had, alas, occasion, during her first season, to reprove several
demonstrative young men for their unconventionally athletic manner of
declaring their suits. She had been far more severe with the humble,
unattractive, and immobile, however, than with the audacious and
ornamental who had attempted to take her by storm. A sudden if awkward
kiss followed by the fiery declaration of the hot-headed disturbed her
less than the persistent stare of an enamoured pair of eyes. As a child
the description of an assault on a citadel always interested her, but
she had neither sympathy nor interest in a siege.

Now, musing there in the sunlight on the events of her first winter, she
became aware that she had been more or less instructed in the ways of
men; and, remembering, she lifted her disturbed eyes to inspect this
specimen of a sex which often perplexed but always interested her.

"What are you smiling about, Duane?" she asked defiantly.

"Your arraignment of me when half the men in town have been trying to
marry you all winter. You've made a reputation for yourself, too,
Geraldine."

"As what?" she asked angrily.

"A head-twister."

"Do you mean a flirt?"

"Oh, Lord! Only the French use that term now. But that's the idea,
Geraldine. You are a born one. I fell for the first smile you let loose
on me."

"You seem to have been a sort of general Humpty Dumpty for falls all
your life, Duane," she said with dangerous sweetness.

"Like that immortal, I've had only one which permanently shattered me."

"Which was that, if you please?"

"The fall you took out of me."

"In other words," she said disdainfully, "you are beginning to make love
to me again."

"No.... I _was_ in love with you."

"You were in love with yourself, young man. You are on such excellent
terms with yourself that you sympathise too ardently with any attractive
woman who takes the least and most innocent notice of you."

He said, very much amused: "I was perfectly serious over you,
Geraldine."

"The s