"Wild Evenings I Have Known," murmured Joan, frivolously, because for some reason she was rather touched.
He nodded, "With wild people in them. Like you."
"Me! Wild?"
"Oh, I know on the surface you're a demure, well-behaved young miss, but underneath—good gracious! You'd shock these people to death!"—he indicated certain hilarious couples who had waltzed onto the terrace near them. "Yes, you're quite untamed, my dear. Wild as a—chipmunk."
Joan leaned toward him, "How did you guess?"
"I've watched you dance. And then—well, I've never quite got used to the cage myself, perhaps." He began to hum under his breath a tuneless little ditty:
"It is a very dreadful thing
To be so fat a child,
To have to sit around all day
And yet to feel so wild."
"At least," laughed Joan, "I'm not fat!"
"No!" he said soberly, "never get fat. It is the beginning of the end.... By fat I mean old. And cautious. Ugh!"
How the conversation came about to apple-trees, Joan never was sure; but he told her about one he had discovered somewhere in the deep woods, all in bloom, a little old gnarled affair hidden among giant first growth sycamores and elms and beeches.