“Aren’t you rather unconventional in your tastes——?”

“If I’m not, I’m a total failure!  I hate conventionality!  And lines of least resistance!  And practical things!  It is the men who are the real sticklers for convention.  The same kind of men that follow the lines of least resistance and build their railroads along them—­because it is practical!

“I don’t see why you want to marry me!” she burst out resentfully.  “I’m not conventional, nor practical.  And I’m not a line of least resistance!”

“But I love you.  I have always loved you, and——­”

The girl interrupted him with a quick little laugh, which held no trace of resentment.  “Yes, yes, I know.  I believe you do.  And I’m glad because really, Winthrop, you’re a dear.  There are lots of things about you I admire.  Your teeth, and eyes, and the way you wear your clothes.  If you weren’t so terribly conventional, so cut and dried, and matter of fact, and safe, I might fall really and truly in love with you.  But—­Oh, I don’t know!  Here I am, twenty-three.  And I suppose I’m a little fool and have never grown up.  I like to read stories about knights errant, and burglars, and fair ladies, and pirates, and mysterious dark oriental-looking men.  And I like to go to places where everybody don’t go—­only Dad won’t let me and——­ Why just think!” she exclaimed in sudden wrath, “I’ve been in California for three months and I’ve ridden over the same trails everybody else has ridden over, and motored over the same roads and climbed the same mountains, and bathed at the same beach, and I’ve met everybody I ever knew in New York, just as I would have met them in Newport or Palm Beach or in Paris or Venice or Naples for that matter!”

“But why go off the beaten track where everything is arranged for your convenience?  These people are experienced travellers.  They know that by keeping to the conventional routes-----”

“Winthrop Adams Endicott, if you say that word again I’ll shriek!  Or I’ll go in from this platform and not speak to you again—­ever!  You know very well that there isn’t a traveller among them.  They’re just tourists—­professional goers.  They do the same things, and say the same things, and if they could think, they’d think the same things every place they go.  And I don’t want things arranged for my convenience—­so there!”

Winthrop Adams Endicott lighted a cigarette, brushed some white dust from his sleeve, and smiled.

“If I were a man and loved a girl so very, very much I wouldn’t just sit around and grin.  I’d do something!”

“But, my dear Alice, what would you have me do?  I’m not a knight errant, nor a burglar, nor a pirate, nor a dark mysterious oriental—­I’m just a plain ordinary business man and——­”