you?"

She was looking up at him with such frank urgency and such entire
sympathy that Quin lost his head completely.

"Miss Nell," he blurted out, "if I stay and get a job and make good, will
you marry me?"

Eleanor, who was used to much more subtle manoeuvers, was caught unaware
by this sudden attack. For a second she was thrown into confusion; then
she rallied all her forces for the defense.

"Why, of course I won't!" she said--then added with more conviction: "I
am not going to marry _anybody_--not for years and years."

"But I'll wait years and years," persisted Quin eagerly. "I wouldn't
marry any girl until I could take care of her. But if you'll just give me
a tip that maybe some day perhaps----"

It was very difficult to go on addressing his remarks to an impassive
classic profile--so difficult, in fact, that he abandoned the effort and
let his eyes say the rest for him.

Eleanor stirred uneasily.

"I _wish_ you wouldn't be foolish, Quin, and spoil all our fun. I've told
you I mean to go on the stage for good and all. You know you wouldn't
want an actress for a wife."

"I'd want you, whatever you were," he said with such fervor that she
rashly gave him her luminous eyes again in gratitude.

He made the most of the opportunity thus offered.

"Honest, now!" he boldly challenged her. "You can't deny that you love me
just a little bit, can you?"

She stared straight ahead of her down the long dim avenue, making no
response to his question. The cherries that swung from her hat-brim
stirred not a hair's-breadth, but the commotion their stillness caused in
Quin's heart was nothing short of cyclonic.

"More than when you left Kentucky?" he persisted relentlessly.

This time a barely perceptible nod stirred the cherries.

"There!" he said triumphantly. "I knew it! Just keep right on the way you
are going, and I won't say a word!"

"But I haven't given you any encouragement; you mustn't think I have."

"I know it. But you haven't turned me down."

At this she smiled at him helplessly.

"You are not very easy to turn down, Quin."

"No," he admitted; "it can't be done."

At this moment the bus rounded a sharp corner without slowing up, and the
passengers on top were lurched forward with such violence that at least
one masculine arm took advantage of the occasion to clasp a swaying lady
with unnecessary solicitude. It may have been a second, and it may have
been longer, that Quin sat with his arm a