“Well, that’s true.  But I know a lot of things you don’t know.”  She laughed softly, showing her pretty teeth.

It was evening.  They were on the side porch.  The river was before them.

“Yes, but that’s only because you’re a woman.  A man can’t hope to get a woman’s point of view exactly.  But I’m talking about practical affairs of this world.  You’re not as old that way as I am.”

“Well, what of it?”

“Nothing.  You asked why I came to see you.  That’s why.  Partly.”

He relapsed into silence and stared at the water.

She looked at him.  His handsome body, slowly broadening, was nearly full grown.  His face, because of its full, clear, big, inscrutable eyes, had an expression which was almost babyish.  She could not have guessed the depths it veiled.  His cheeks were pink, his hands not large, but sinewy and strong.  Her pale, uncertain, lymphatic body extracted a form of dynamic energy from him even at this range.

“I don’t think you ought to come to see me so often.  People won’t think well of it.”  She ventured to take a distant, matronly air—­the air she had originally held toward him.

“People,” he said, “don’t worry about people.  People think what you want them to think.  I wish you wouldn’t take that distant air toward me.”

“Why?”

“Because I like you.”

“But you mustn’t like me.  It’s wrong.  I can’t ever marry you.  You’re too young.  I’m too old.”

“Don’t say that!” he said, imperiously.  “There’s nothing to it.  I want you to marry me.  You know I do.  Now, when will it be?”

“Why, how silly!  I never heard of such a thing!” she exclaimed.  “It will never be, Frank.  It can’t be!”

“Why can’t it?” he asked.

“Because—­well, because I’m older.  People would think it strange.  I’m not long enough free.”

“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.