“Am I blushing?” she said.  “Are you sure?” And with that she gave him ample opportunity to make sure, repeating with interest the look wasted upon Roscoe.  “I think you must be mistaken,” she continued.  “I think it’s your brother who is blushing.  I’ve thrown him into confusion.”

“How?”

She laughed, and then, leaning to him a little, said in a tone as confidential as she could make it, under cover of the uproar.  “By trying to begin with him a courtship I meant for you!”

This might well be a style new to Jim; and it was.  He supposed it a nonsensical form of badinage, and yet it took his breath.  He realized that he wished what she said to be the literal truth, and he was instantly snared by that realization.

“By George!” he said.  “I guess you’re the kind of girl that can say anything—­yes, and get away with it, too!”

She laughed again—­in her way, so that he could not tell whether she was laughing at him or at herself or at the nonsense she was talking; and she said:  “But you see I don’t care whether I get away with it or not.  I wish you’d tell me frankly if you think I’ve got a change to get away with you?”

“More like if you’ve got a chance to get away from me!” Jim was inspired to reply.  “Not one in the world, especially after beginning by making fun of me like that.”

“I mightn’t be so much in fun as you think,” she said, regarding him with sudden gravity.

“Well,” said Jim, in simple honesty, “you’re a funny girl!”

Her gravity continued an instant longer.  “I may not turn out to be funny for you.”

“So long as you turn out to be anything at all for me, I expect I can manage to be satisfied.”  And with that, to his own surprise, it was his turn to blush, whereupon she laughed again.

“Yes,” he said, plaintively, not wholly lacking intuition, “I can see you’re the sort of girl that would laugh the minute you see a man really means anything!”

“’Laugh’!” she cried, gaily.  “Why, it might be a matter of life and death!  But if you want tragedy, I’d better put the question at once, considering the mistake I made with your brother.”

Jim was dazed.  She seemed to be playing a little game of mockery and nonsense with him, but he had glimpses of a flashing danger in it; he was but too sensible of being outclassed, and had somewhere a consciousness that he could never quite know this giddy and alluring lady, no matter how long it pleased her to play with him.  But he mightily wanted her to keep on playing with him.

“Put what question?” he said, breathlessly.

“As you are a new neighbor of mine and of my family,” she returned, speaking slowly and with a cross-examiner’s severity, “I think it would be well for me to know at once whether you are already walking out with any young lady or not.  Mr. Sheridan, think well!  Are you spoken for?”