"I don't know about my philosophy—I haven't any—but my common sense would."
"I'm not sure," he returned half seriously, "that I have much opinion of common sense."
"But you would have," she commented gravely, "if you had happened to be born with Beverly for a brother. I used to think that all men were alike," she added, "but you don't remind me of Beverly in the very least."
As she spoke she turned her face slightly toward him, and still leaning over the luxuriant tomato row, looked up at him joyously with her sparkling eyes. Her breath came quickly and he saw her bosom rise and fall under the scant bodice of her blue cotton gown. Almost unconsciously he had drifted into an association with her which constituted for him the principal charm of his summer at Cedar Hill.
"On the other hand I've discovered many points of resemblance," he retorted in his whimsical tone.
"Well, you're both easy to live in the house with, I admit that."
"And we're both perfectly amiable as long as everybody agrees with us and nobody crosses us," he added.
"I shouldn't like to cross you," she said, laughing, "but then why should I? Isn't it very pleasant as it is now?"
"Yes, it is very pleasant as it is now," he repeated slowly.
Turning away from her he stood looking in silence over the tall corn to the amber light that fell beyond the clear outline of a distant hill. The association was, as she had just said, very pleasant in his thoughts, and the temptation he felt now was to drift on with the summer, leaving events to shape themselves as they would in the future. What harm, he demanded, could come of any relation so healthful, so simple as this?