“I want to talk to you,” he declared. “I must talk to you.”
“But you had no right! He will tell, and everybody will be talking about it.”
“I don’t care if they do.”
“But I care, Mr. van Tuiver—you should not have taken such a liberty.”
“Please, Miss Castleman,” he hurried on, “please listen to me. I’ve been thinking about it, and it interests me keenly. I believe that in you I might really have a friend—if only you would. A real friend, I mean—who’d tell me the truth—who’d be absolutely disinterested——”
The fun of it was too much for Sylvia. “Haven’t I explained to you that I mightn’t be disinterested?”
“I’ll trust you.”
“Of course,” she went on, gravely. “I might give you my word of honor that I wouldn’t marry you.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “I suppose so——”
The girl was convulsed with laughter. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she remarked, “I see you are an earnest man; I really ought to stop teasing you. Don’t you think I ought?”