"Jimps, there's a path in your brain that's getting worn too deep to-night. Come—let's hurry home. Jeannette will wonder what's become of me."
"Let her wonder. George, are you going to do this thing?"
"Of course I am."
"No matter how I feel about it?"
"Why, Jimps—really, do you think you have any right——"
"Georgiana, I—love you!"
"No, Jimps, you don't. Not so much as all that. You have a brotherly affection——"
"Brotherly affection doesn't hurt; this does," was Stuart's declaration.
"No, it doesn't, my dear boy. You're just made with a queer sort of jealous element in your composition, and when something happens to call it out you think it's—something quite different," explained Georgiana rather lamely. "You know perfectly that you and I fit best as good friends; we should be awfully unhappy tied up together in any way. Why, we settled that long ago, as I reminded you just now."
"It seems to have come unsettled," Stuart muttered.