Floyd laughed. “I declare you are a strange little creature. You simply won't let me be nice to you.”
“Well, I'm sure I don't like you when you speak that way,” the girl said, seriously. “It sounds insincere—it makes me doubt you more than anything else.”
“Then some things about me don't make you doubt me,” he said, with tentative eagerness.
She was silent for a moment, then she nodded her head. “I'll admit that some things I hear of you make me rather admire you, in a way.”
“Please tell me what they are,” he said, with a laugh.
“I've heard, for one thing, of your being very good and kind to poor people—people who Mr. Mayhew would have turned out of their homes for debt if you hadn't interfered.”
“Oh, that was only business, Cynthia,” Floyd laughed. “I simply can see farther than the old man can—that's all. He thought those customers never would be able to pay, but I knew they would some day, and, moreover, that they would come up with the back interest.”
“I don't believe it,” the girl said, firmly. “Those things make me rather like you, while the others make—they make me—doubt.”
“Doubt? Oh, you odd little woman!” They had reached a spring which flowed from a great bed of rocks in the side of a rugged hill. He pointed to a flat stone quite near it. “Do you remember, Cynthia, the first time I ever had a talk with you? It was while we were seated on this very rock.”
She recalled it, but only nodded her head.