"How funny you are! You look and act like a little boy at a party presenting his first offering to the eternal feminine."
"It's my first offering," he said coolly.
"Oh, Sandy! With your devilish record!"
"Do you know," he said, "that I'm thirty-two years old? And that you are twenty-two? And that since you were twelve and I was twenty odd I've been in love with you?"
She looked at him in blank dismay for a moment, then forced a laugh:
"Of course I know it, Sandy. It's the kind of love a girl cares most about—"
"It's really love," said Cameron, un-smiling—"the kind I'm afraid she doesn't care very much about."
[Illustration: "'If you'll place a lump of sugar on my nose, and say "when," I'll perform.'">[
She hesitated, then met his gaze with a distressed smile:
"You don't really mean that, Sandy—"