About Polk I feel that I am in the midst of one of those great calm, oily stretches of ocean that a ship is rocked gently in for a few hours before the storm tosses it first to Heaven and then to hell.  He is so psychic, and in a way attuned to me, that he partly understands my purpose in declaring my love for him to put him at a disadvantage in his love-making to me, and he hasn’t let me do it yet, while his tacit suit goes on.  It is a drawn battle between us and is going to be fought to the death.  In the meantime Nell—­

And while I was on the porch sitting with Richard Hall’s letter in my hand, still unread, Nell herself came down the front walk and sat down beside me.

“Why, I thought you had gone fishing with Polk,” I said as I cuddled her up to me a second.  She laid her head on my shoulder and heaved such a sigh that it shook us both.

“I didn’t quite like to go with him alone and Henrietta wouldn’t go because a bee had stung the red-headed twin, and she wanted to stay to scold Sallie,” she answered with both hesitation and depression in her voice.

“Polk is—­is strenuous for a whole day’s companionship,” I answered, experimentally, for I saw the time had come to exercise some of the biceps in Nell’s femininity in preparation for just what I knew she was to get from Polk.  My heart ached for what I knew she was suffering.  I had had exactly those growing pains for months following that experience with him on the front porch after the dance four years ago.  And I had had change of scene and occupation to help.

“I don’t understand him at all,” faltered Nell, and she raised her eyes as she bared her wound to me.

“Nell,” I said with trepidation, as I began on this my first disciple, “you aren’t a bit ashamed or embarrassed or humiliated in showing me that you love me, are you?”

“You know I’ve adored you ever since I could toddle at your heels, Evelina,” she answered, and the love-message her great brown eyes flashed into mine was as sweet as anything that ever happened to me.

“Then, why should you wonder and suffer and restrain and be humiliated at your love for Polk?” I asked, firing point blank at all of Nell’s traditions.  “Why not tell him about it and ask him if he loves you?”

The shot landed with such force that Nell gasped, but answered as straight out from the shoulder as I had aimed.

“I would rather die than have Polk Hayes know how he—­he affects me,” she answered with her head held high.

“Then, what you feel for him is not worthy love, but something entirely unworthy,” I answered loftily, with a very poor imitation of Jane’s impressiveness of speech.

“I know it,” she faltered into my shoulder, “if it were Mr. James Hardin I loved, I wouldn’t mind anybody’s knowing it, but something must be wrong with Polk or me or the way I feel.  What is it?”

For a moment I got so stiff all over that Nell raised her head from my shoulder in surprise.  Do all women feel about the Crag as I do?