ded; for a moment they stood there,
confronting one another.

"Do you imagine," he said in a low voice, "that I do not know all that?"

"I don't know whether you do. For all your friendship--for all your
liking and your kindness to me--somehow--I--I don't seem to stand with
you as other women do; I don't seem to stand their chances."

"What chances?"

"The--the consideration; you don't call any other woman 'child,' do you?
You don't constantly remind other women of the difference in your ages,
do you? You don't _feel_ with other women that you are--as you please to
call it--_hors de concours_--out of the running. And somehow, with me,
it humiliates. Because even if I--if I am the sort of a girl who never
means to marry, you--your attitude seems to take away the possibility of
my changing my mind; it dictates to me, giving me no choice, no liberty,
no personal freedom in the matter. . . . It's as though you considered
me somehow utterly out of the question--radically unthinkable as a
woman. And you assume to take for granted that I also regard you as--as
_hors de concours_. . . . Those are my grievances, Captain Selwyn. . . .
And I _don't_ regard you so. And I--and it troubles me to be
excluded--to be found wanting, inadequate in anything that a woman
should be. I know that you and I have no desire to marry each
other--but--but please don't make the reason for it either your age or
my physical immaturity or intellectual inexperience."

Another of those weather-stained seats of Georgia marble stood embedded
under the trees near where she had halted; and she seated herself,
outwardly composed, and inwardly a little frightened at what she had
said.

As for Selwyn, he remained where he had been standing on the lawn's
velvet edge; and, raising her eyes again, her heart misgave her that she
had wantonly strained a friendship which had been all but perfect; and
now he was moving across the path toward her--a curious look in his face
which she could not interpret. She looked up as he approached and
stretched out her hand:

"Forgive me, Captain Selwyn," she said. "I _am_ a child--a spoiled one;
and I have proved it to you. Will you sit here beside me and tell me
very gently what a fool I am to risk straining the friendship dearest to
me in the whole world? And will you fix my penance?"

"You have fixed it yourself," he said.

"How?"

"By the challenge of your womanhood."

"I did not challenge--"

"No; you defended