"You don't like that big man with the big voice," said Gloria.
"No," he said tersely.
"It is Swen Brodie?"
"Yes. But how do you know?"
"Oh, I know lots of things people don't think I know! All girls do.
Girls are rather knowing creatures; I wonder if you realize that?"
"I don't know much about girls," he smiled at her.
She pondered the matter for a dozen steps, swinging her hat at her side and looking away across the housetops to the mountains. She did not know any other man who would have said that in just that way. The words were frank; all sincerity; that is, nothing lay behind them. Archie and Teddy, any of her boy friends in town—they knew all about girls! Or thought that they did. Mr. Gratton with his smooth way; he led her to suppose that he had been giving girls a great deal of studious thought for many years, and that only after this thorough investigation did he feel in a position to declare herself to be the most wonderful of her sex.
"Don't you like girls?" she asked. For once she wasn't "fishing"; she wanted to know.
"Of course I do," he told her heartily. "As well as a man can—under the circumstances."
"You mean not knowing them better?" When he nodded she looked up at him again, hesitated, and then demanded: "You like me, don't you?"