"Don't you like me?" he asked plaintively.
"Not that way," she answered positively.
"You might try," he suggested hopefully. "Honest, I'm crazy about you. I've liked you ever since I saw you first. I wouldn't want any greater privilege than to marry you and take you away from this sort of thing. You're too good for it. Maybe I'm kind of sudden, but I know my own mind. Can't you take a chance with me?"
"I'm sorry," she said gently, seeing him so sadly in earnest. "It isn't a question of taking a chance. I don't care for you. I haven't got any feeling but the mildest sort of friendliness. If I married you, it would only be for a home, as the saying is. And I'm not made that way. Can't you see how impossible it would be?"
"You'd get to like me," he declared. "I'm just as good as the next man."
His smooth pink-and-white skin reddened again.
"That sounds a lot like tooting my own horn mighty strong," said he. "But I'm in dead earnest. If there isn't anybody else yet, you could like me just as well as the next fellow. I'd be awfully good to you."
"I daresay you would," she said quietly. "But I couldn't be good to you. I don't want to marry you, Mr. Abbey. That's final. All the feeling I have for you isn't enough for any woman to marry on."
"Maybe not," he said dolefully. "I suppose that's the way it goes. Hang it, I guess I was a little too sudden. But I'm a stayer. Maybe you'll change your mind some time."
He was standing very near her, and they were both so intent upon the momentous business that occupied them that neither noticed Charlie Benton until his hail startled them to attention.