t delicately bronzed
skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large
liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips,--all the stigmata of passion
were there. But I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found
the secret of drawing it forth. However, come what might, I should
have done with suspense and bring matters to a head to-night. She
could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted
brother.

So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long
and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark eyes looked round at me,
and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof. "I have a
presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you
wouldn't; for things are so much nicer as they are."

I drew my chair a little nearer. "Now, how did you know that I was
going to propose?" I asked in genuine wonder.

"Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was
ever taken unawares? But--oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and
so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don't you feel how splendid it
is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to
face as we have talked?"

"I don't know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with--with the
station-master." I can't imagine how that official came into the
matter; but in he trotted, and set us both laughing. "That does not
satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you, and your head on my
breast, and--oh, Gladys, I want----"

She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed to
demonstrate some of my wants. "You've spoiled everything, Ned," she
said. "It's all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing
comes in! It is such a pity! Why can't you control yourself?"

"I didn't invent it," I pleaded. "It's nature. It's love."

"Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different. I have never felt
it."

"But you must--you, with your beauty, with your soul! Oh, Gladys, you
were made for love! You must love!"

"One must wait till it comes."

"But why can't you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?"

She did unbend a little. She put forward a hand--such a gracious,
stooping attitude it was--and she pressed back my head. Then she
looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile.

"No it isn't that," she said at last. "You're not a conceited boy by
nature, and so I can safely tell you it is not that. It's deeper."

"M