“Oh, long enough nothing!” he exclaimed, irritably. “That’s the one thing I have against you—you are so worried about what people think. They don’t make your life. They certainly don’t make mine. Think of yourself first. You have your own life to make. Are you going to let what other people think stand in the way of what you want to do?”
“But I don’t want to,” she smiled.
He arose and came over to her, looking into her eyes.
“Well?” she asked, nervously, quizzically.
He merely looked at her.
“Well?” she queried, more flustered.
He stooped down to take her arms, but she got up.
“Now you must not come near me,” she pleaded, determinedly. “I’ll go in the house, and I’ll not let you come any more. It’s terrible! You’re silly! You mustn’t interest yourself in me.”
She did show a good deal of determination, and he desisted. But for the time being only. He called again and again. Then one night, when they had gone inside because of the mosquitoes, and when she had insisted that he must stop coming to see her, that his attentions were noticeable to others, and that she would be disgraced, he caught her, under desperate protest, in his arms.
“Now, see here!” she exclaimed. “I told you! It’s silly! You mustn’t kiss me! How dare you! Oh! oh! oh!—”