"Like no one else in the world."
"Because no two people are alike, of course. I'd hate to be exactly somebody's twin.... You're that way, too. You don't remind me of anyone I've ever seen. Most men do."
They had come to a gate which resisted Pat's attempt, being locked. "Oh, very well!" she said, addressing it, "I'll just climb you."
She attained the top, agile as a cat. But in getting down she tore her frock. "Oh, hell!" she cried lamentably. "Are you shocked, Mr. Scott? You don't like me to swear, do you?"
"I like you to be your very self, Pat."
"It's easy to be that with you. You're an easy person to be with," she meditated.
She stopped under the shelter of a small arbour spanning one of the sideyard paths of Holiday Knoll. Clematis in full glory covered it. The faint, rich odour of its late blossoming, dewy and fresh and virginal as if the aging year, after all its fecund maternity of summer, had again put forth its claim to imperishable maidenhood in the blooms, enveloped them. She turned upon him the slant challenge of her eyes from beneath the clouding mass of hair.
"Do you truly like me," she wheedled, "better than Cissie?"
As if the words were torn from the depths of him and forced through his constricted throat, he answered:
"I'm mad about you."