"Let us talk more freely," went on the man. "Try to open your mind to me. There are things which you dislike in me; I know it. Just what those things are I cannot tell, but we must break down these foolish little barriers which are appearing more and more every day. Not that I mean to intrude myself on you every moment of your life. You understand that, of course?"
"Of course," said the girl faintly.
"And I understand perfectly that you have passed out of childhood into young womanhood, and that is a dreamy time for a girl. Her body is formed at last, but her mind is only half formed. There is a pleasant mist over it. Very well, I don't wish to brush the mist away. If I did that I would take half that charm away from you—that elusive incompleteness which Fragonard and Watteau tried to imitate, Heaven knows with how little success. No, I shall always let you live your own life. All that I ask for, my dear, are certain meeting places. Let us establish them before it is too late, or you will find one day that you have married an old man, and we shall have silent dinners. There is nothing more wretched than that. If it should come about, then you will begin to look on me as a jailer. And—"
"Don't!"
"Ah," said he very tenderly, "I knew that I was feeling toward the truth. You are shrinking from me, Ruth, because you feel that I am too old."
"No, no!"
Here a hand pounded heavily on the door.
"The idiots have found something," said the man of the sneer. "And now they have come to talk about their cleverness, like a rooster crowing over a grain of corn." He raised his voice. "Come in!"
And Ronicky Doone heard a panting voice a moment later exclaim: "We've got him!"