“Oh, please!” begged Eve, with a little vexed laugh.

“What?” he asked, perplexedly.

“Don’t talk of yourself as though you were—­were just nothing, and of me as though I were a princess.  It’s absurd!  I’m only a very ordinary sort of person with ordinary faults—­perhaps more than my share of them.”

“You’re the finest woman I ever saw, and the loveliest,” replied Wade stoutly.  “And if you’re not for me no other woman is.”

The sunshade intervened again and they walked on for some little distance in silence.  Then Wade began slowly, choosing his words:  “Maybe I’ve talked in a way to give you a wrong impression.  You mustn’t think that there’s any—­false modesty about me.  I reckon I have rather too good an opinion of myself, if anything.  I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed in me—­afterwards, you know.  I reckon I’ve got an average amount of sense and ability.  I’ve been pretty successful for a man of twenty-eight, and it hasn’t been all luck, not by a whole lot!  Maybe most folks would say I was conceited, had a swelled head.  It’s only when it comes to—­to asking you to marry me that I get kind of down on myself.  I know I’m not good enough, Miss Walton, and I own up to it.  The only comforting thought is that there aren’t many men who are.  I’m saying this because I don’t want to fool you into thinking me any more modest and humble than I am.  You understand?”

“Yes, I understand,” replied Eve, from under the sunshade.

“And you won’t forget your promise?”

“You mean—­”

“To think it over.”

“No, I won’t forget.  But please don’t hope too much, Mr. Herrick, for I can’t promise anything, really!  It isn’t that I don’t like you, for I do, but”—­her voice trailed off into silence.

“I hardly dared hope for that much,” said Wade, gratefully.  “Of course it isn’t enough, but it’s something to start on.”

“But liking isn’t love,” objected Eve, gravely.

“I know.  And there was never love without liking.  You don’t mind if I get what comfort I can out of that, do you?”

“N-no, I suppose not,” answered Eve, slowly.

“It doesn’t bind you to anything, you see.  Shall we turn back now?  The breeze seems to have left us.”

Presently he said:  “There’s something I want very much to ask you, but I don’t know whether I have any right to.”

“If there’s anything I can answer, I will,” said Eve.

“Then I’ll ask it, and you can do as you please about answering.  It’s just this.  Is there anyone who has—­a prior claim?  I mean is there any one you must consider in this, Miss Walton.  Please don’t say a word unless you want to.”

Eve made no reply for a moment.  Then, “I think I’m glad you did ask that, Mr. Herrick,” she said, “for it gives me a chance to explain why I haven’t answered you this morning, instead of putting it off.  I am not bound in any way by any promise of mine, and yet—­there is some one who—­I hardly know how to put it, Mr. Herrick.”