"The idea! How could you say that?"
"Because modesty protests against the words that a woman most likes to hear, and modesty does not chide until she ventures upon an enjoyment."
"Then modesty is a scold, instead of a friendly guide."
"No. But over-modesty is over-caution."
"We were not talking of over-modesty. Are you as bold with all women as you are with me?" She looked at him with quizzical mischief in her eyes. He plucked a white clover blossom and tossed it upward. It fell in her lap.
"Bold, did you say? Am I bold? Most women have laughed at my angular shyness."
"Laughed at you; how could they?"
"On account of my peculiarities. I was called an old bachelor before I was twenty, and as I grew older I considered myself one, irredeemably, for I never expected to marry."
"I should have thought your life full of romance, wandering about, as you must have done."
"My life has been a tread-mill," he answered.