Olive looked at him inquiringly.

“Since you spoke to me this afternoon,” he went on, “I have been in a state of most miserable embarrassment; I can not for the life of me decide what I ought to say or what I ought to do, or what I ought not to say or what I ought not to do.  If I should pass over as something not necessary to take into consideration the—­the—­most unusual statement you made to me, it might be that you would consider me as a boor, a man incapable of appreciating the—­the—­highest honors.  Then again, if I do say anything to show that I appreciate such honors, you may well consider me presumptuous, conceited, and even insulting.  I thought a while ago that I would leave this house before it would be necessary for me to decide how I should act when I met you, but I could not do that.  Explanations would be necessary, and I would not be able to make them, and so, in sheer despair, I have come to you.  Whatever you say I ought to do I will do.  Of myself, I am utterly helpless.”

Olive looked at him with serious earnestness.  “You are in a queer position,” she said, “and I don’t wonder you do not know what to do.  I did not think of this peculiar consequence which would result from my revelation.  As to the revelation itself, there is no use talking about it; it had to be made.  It would have been unjust and wicked to allow a man to live in ignorance of the fact that such a thing had happened to him without his knowing it.  But I think I can make it all right for you.  If you had known when you were very young, in fact, when you were in another age of man, that a young girl in short dresses was in love with you, would you have disdained her affection?”

“I should say not!” exclaimed Rupert Hemphill, his eyes fixed upon the person who had once been that girl in short dresses.

“Well, then,” said Olive, “there could have been nothing for her to complain of, no matter what she knew or what she did not know, and there is nothing he could complain of, no matter what he knew or did not know.  And as both these persons have passed entirely out of existence, I think you and I need consider them no longer.  And we can talk about tennis or bass fishing, or anything we like.  And if you are a fisherman you will be glad to hear that there is first-rate bass fishing in the river now, and that we are talking of getting up a regular fishing party.  We shall have to go two or three miles below here where the water is deeper and there are not so many rocks.”

That night Mr. Hemphill dreamed hard of a girl who had loved him when she was little, and who continued to love him now that she had grown to be wonderfully handsome.  He was going out to sail with her in a boat far and far away, where nobody could find them or bring them back.

CHAPTER XIV

A Letter for Olive.