“Put it any way you like,” she said coldly.
“I am a perfectly harmless person,” he declared, “who has never wronged you in thought or deed. It is my misfortune that I have a certain feeling for you which I honestly don’t think you deserve.”
She dropped the watering can and her eyes blazed at him.
“Not deserve?” she repeated.
“No!” he replied, trembling but standing his ground firmly. “Every nice girl has a feeling of some sort for the man who is idiot enough to be in love with her. I am just telling you this to let you know that I can see your faults just as much as the things in you which—which I worship. And good night!”...
Jacob sat out on the hillside until late, smoking stolidly and dreaming. Inside the little white-plastered house below, from which the lights were beginning to steal out, Sybil was busy preparing supper and waiting upon her highly-pleased and triumphant parent. Later, she too sat in the garden and watched the moon come up from behind the dark belt of woodland which sheltered the reservoir. Perhaps she dreamed of her prince to come, as the lonely man on the hillside was dreaming of the things which she typified to him.