"Why do you spend every summer out here in the wilderness?" I asked, feeling certain that nothing but speech could save me from going hopelessly silly.
She turned her eyes calmly toward me, and—their power had not weakened, at all events. I felt as if I had taken hold of a battery with all the current turned on.
"Why, I suppose I like it here in summer. You're here, yourself; don't you like it?"
I wanted to say something smart, there, and I have thought of a dozen bright remarks since; but at the time I couldn't think of a blessed thing that came within a mile of being either witty or epigrammatic. Love-making was all new to me, and I saw right then that I wasn't going to shine. I finally did remark that I should like it better if her father would be less belligerent and more peaceful as a neighbor.
"You told me, last summer, that you enjoyed keeping up the feud," she reminded, smiling whimsically down at me.
She made a wrong play there; she let me see that she did remember some things that I said. It boosted my courage a notch.
"But that was last summer," I countered. "One can change one's view-point a lot in twelve months. Anyway, you knew all along that I didn't mean a word of it."
"Indeed!" It was evident that she didn't quite like having me take that tone.
"Yes, 'indeed'!" I repeated, feeling a rebellion against circumstances and at convention growing stronger within me. Why couldn't I put her on my horse and carry her off and keep her always? I wondered crazily. That was what I wanted to do.
"Do you ever mean what you say, I wonder?" she mused, biting her pencil-point like a schoolgirl when she can't remember how many times three goes into twenty-seven.