d his _a priori_ idea of her brought the smile--a
smile no kin to that hard smile of his. And looking with a different
slant across the gulf there was a sort of affectionate roguery in his
eyes as he asked: "Do you want to know what I honestly think about you?"

She nodded.

"I think you're in for it!"

"In for what?"

"I don't think you've the ghost of a chance to escape!" he gloated.

"Escape--what?"

"Seeing. And when you do--!" He laughed--that laugh one thinks of as the
exclusive possession of an affectionate understanding. And when it died
to a smile, something tenderly teasing flickered in that smile.

She flushed under it. "You were telling me--we keep stopping."

"Yes, don't we? I wonder if we always would."

"We keep stopping to quarrel."

"Yes--to quarrel. I wonder if we always would."

"I haven't a doubt of it in the world," said Katie feelingly, and they
laughed together as friends laugh together.

"Well, where did I leave myself? Oh yes--waiting. Sitting there busily
engaged in hating you. Then she came across the grass--making straight
for the river--running. I saw that you saw, and the thing that mattered
to me then was what you would do about it. Saved or not saved, she was
gone--I thought. The crowd had squeezed it all out of her. The live thing
to me was what you--the You of the world that you became to me--would do
about her."

He paused, smiling at that absurd and noble vision of Katie tumbling down
the bunker. "And when you did what you did do--it was so treacherously
disarming, the quick-witted humanity, the clever tenderness of it--I
loved you so for it that I just couldn't go on hating. There's where
you're a dangerous person. How dare you--standing for the You of the
world--dampen the splendid ardor of my hate?"

Katie did not let pass her chance. "Perhaps if the Me of the world were
known a little more intimately it would be less hated."

He shook his head. "They just happened to have you. They can't keep you."

There was another one of those pauses which drew them so much closer
than the words. She knew what he was wondering, and he knew that she
knew. At length she colored a little and called him back to the greater
reserve of words.

"I saw how royally you put it through. I could see you standing there on
the porch, looking back to the river. I've wanted several things rather
badly in my life, but I doubt if I've ever wanted anything much worse
than to know what you wer