"To what?" asked Olive. "But first tell me where you have been and what you have been doing? You are covered with dust, and look as hot as if you had been pulling the boat against the rapids. I have not seen you the whole morning."
"I have been walking," said he, "and thinking. It is dreadful hot work to think. That should be done only in winter weather."
"It would be a woeful thing to take a cold on the mind," said Olive.
"That is so!" he replied. "That is exactly what I am afraid of this morning, and that is the reason I want to propose my amendment. I beg most earnestly that you will not make this interview definitive. I am afraid if you do I may get chills in my mind, soul, and heart from which I shall never recover. I have an idea that the weather may not be as favorable as it was yesterday for the unveiling of tender emotions."
"Why so?" asked Olive.
"There are several reasons," returned Mr. Locker. "For one thing, that musical uproar last night. I have not heard anything about that, and I don't know where I stand."
Olive laughed. "It was splendid," said she. "I liked you a great deal better after that than I did before."
"Now tell me," he exclaimed hurriedly, "and please lose no time, for here comes a surrey from the station with a gentleman in it—do you like me enough better to give me a favorable answer, now, right here?"
"No," said Olive. "I do not feel warranted in being so precipitate as that."
"Then please say nothing on the subject," said Locker. "Please let us drop the whole matter for to-day. And may I assume that I am at liberty to take it up again to-morrow at this hour?"