"That's what you get," Boone retorted calmly, "for making a chicken-hearted fellow fall in love with you. I had to hang 'round and wait. I could no more pursue you through the roses and diamonds than a cat could follow you into water."
The girl shook her head with a bewildered indulgence. "I can't understand it," she protested. "There is nothing to be frightened about."
The young mountaineer grinned sheepishly. "I reckon a lion-tamer would say the same thing," he asserted, "about going into the cage. He's used to it."
Anne sat silent for a few moments, and between her eyes came a tiny pucker, as if a thought tinged with pain had pricked, thornlike, into her reflections.
At last she spoke slowly: "Suppose you couldn't swim, and I had to spend a lot of time in deep water. Wouldn't you learn?"
"That's different," he assured her. "You might need me in that event."
"You say society frightens you, and it's a thing I can't understand. I could understand its boring you. It bores me. I love informal things. I love my friends and the door that stands open as it always does here, but I hate the dress parades. There's some sense in the Horse Show. It makes a market for expensively bred and trained animals, and it's a sort of fancy advertising; but I don't care for a human application of the same idea."
"I feel that way, too," he responded quickly, "and not being expensively bred or trained, I can't escape feeling like a cart horse would feel in that ring."
"I'm going to make my début, Boone," she said quietly. "I'm going to do it because both mother and Uncle Tom have their hearts set on it and there's no graciousness in stubborn resistance. There are times coming when I've got to stand out against them, and I don't want to multiply them needlessly. But there's something more than just ordinary dislike back of my feeling as I do about it all, and I think it's a thing you'd be the first to understand."
"I guess I ought to understand, Anne, but I've got so much to learn. Please make allowances for me and explain." His tone was humble and self-accusing.