it. And then they paused, further progress along the sun-flecked way seeming inhibited by some subtle agent in league with the emotion which swept over them both. Oh, Eros! Are your agents everywhere? From gripping her hand he unexpectedly and rather bafflingly had her in his arms. And she[Pg 41] presented, for just that charged moment, no resistance, but relaxed there with a little inarticulate, troubled, withal surrendering cry. [Pg 41] "Louise!" "Oh, Les!" When they had kissed he broke the curious spell by demanding, with considerable passion, why, if she really did care, she was so willing to throw him over for another man. It seemed a pivotal question. It seemed an unanswerable one, even, in the light of what had just occurred. But Miss Needham, now the spell was broken and she could breathlessly begin getting hold of herself again, proved magnificently equal to it. The beauty of the Needham logic was just that it could always find an answer to every question, however pivotal—some kind of answer, that is. "Oh, Leslie!" she cried. "Don't you see? I'm not throwing you over. Not the way you want to make it seem. I care for you just the same as—yes, as I ever did! Why shouldn't I?" she demanded, with vague defiance. "Only I—I suppose some of the things we've done—what we just did.... Well, and the other times, aren't—I suppose they wouldn't be quite right if I'm to be formally engaged. But you see I—I've looked upon this engagement—I mean I've looked upon it as not quite settled yet...." She faltered and spoke more thickly, as though getting down to cold facts somehow made the whole business a little tawdry. "I'm[Pg 42] not wearing any ring yet, you see," she went on, waving her hand before them a trifle awkwardly, and laughing with constraint. "And as long as Mr. Barry and I aren't really engaged—not quite in the usual way yet, I mean—I didn't see—I don't see now what harm there is in making—well, new friends." [Pg 42] It was an amazing speech. It was a wonderful speech. He offered no immediate reply to it. What could he say? The fact is, he had never heard just such a speech as this in his life, and found himself, not perhaps unreasonably, a little bit bewildered by it. None of the lessons in feminine psychology he had learned thus far had just prepared Leslie for such a speech as this. As abruptly as they had paused,
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