"But do you mean to say yes, or no?" Clarence demanded with some irritation.
Patty looked at him with dilated eyes.
"It must come," she thought, "and then I shall be engaged to him, and he'll have the right to kiss me; but I must say it."
She opened her lips to give the fatal assent.
"No," they said, it seemed to her entirely without her volition.
"What!" he exclaimed.
"I said 'no,'" she repeated, feeling as if amare had been removed from her breast. "I like you very much, Clarence; but I don't think we are quite suited for each other."
"You don't!" he retorted, smarting with wounded love and vanity. "Then why couldn't you say so at once, and not keep me making a fool of myself for nothing all summer?"
"I own I've treated you horridly," she said humbly. "And I beg your pardon; but I didn't know my own mind."
"You ought to have known," he continued, becoming more angry as she grew more yielding. "You may go farther and fare worse, Patty Sanford. I might have known you were leading me on. I always thought you were a flirt, but I did think you'd treat an old friend decently. Thank Heaven, I needn't go to the world's end for a wife!"