"That's just what I find it so hard to do!" confessed young Nisbet. "I'm a stupid sort of lout, you know, Miss Rathbawne. I've never had half a chance to practice talking to dames, and where other lads fuss like experts, I just can't make good. I foozle every stroke. I'm an ass—that's all!"
"You're nothing of the sort!" said Dorothy indignantly. "You're an extremely attractive young man!"
"As good as the average in some ways, perhaps. But—how can I explain what I mean?—there always comes a day when a chap wants to be more, wants to be the best ever, in every way! That's the proposition I'm up against now. I seem to be just a bundle of misfits, and—and—oh, shucks! my line of talk is all crooked, and I can't tell you what the trouble is, but"—
"Your liver's out of kilter," interpolated Dorothy.
"No, sir!" protested young Nisbet. "Nothing is ever out of kilter inside me! If I'm nothing else, I'm blue-ribbon boy on the health question. No, it's something I want, and that I'm pretty sure I can't get."
"I know perfectly well what it is," said Dorothy, "and you haven't even asked for it!"
Young Nisbet looked up suddenly.
"Do you mean?"—he stammered, "do you mean?"—
Outside, the front door slammed, and Mrs. Rathbawne's voice became audible, inquiring Dorothy's whereabouts of the butler. The girl laughed.
"There's the Mater back again," she said. "Oh, Mr. Nisbet!"