“Something of the sort.”

“Didn’t Miss Van Arsdale warn you against me?”

“How did you know that?” he asked, staring.

“A solemn warning not to fall in love with me?” pursued the girl calmly.

He stopped short.  “She told you that she had said something to me?”

“Don’t be idiotic!  Of course she didn’t.”

“Then how did you know?” he persisted.

“How does one snake know what another snake will do?” she retorted.  “Being of the same—­”

“Wait a moment.  I don’t like that word ‘snake’ in connection with Miss Van Arsdale.”

“Though you’re willing to accept it as applying to me.  I believe you are trying to quarrel with me,” accused Io.  “I only meant that, being a woman, I can make a guess at what another woman would do in any given conditions.  And she did it!” she concluded in triumph.

“No; she didn’t.  Not in so many words.  But you’re very clever.”

“Say, rather, that you are very stupid,” was the disdainful retort.  “So you’re not going to fall in love with me?”

“Of course not,” answered Banneker in the most cheerfully commonplace of tones.

Once embarked upon this primrose path, which is always an imperceptible but easy down-slope, Io went farther than she had intended.  “Why not?” she challenged.

“Brass buttons,” said Banneker concisely.

She flushed angrily.  “You can be rather a beast, can’t you!”

“A beast?  Just for reminding you that the Atkinson and St. Philip station-agent at Manzanita does not include in his official duties that of presuming to fall in love with chance passengers who happen to be more or less in his care.”

“Very proper and official!  Now,” added the girl in a different manner, “let’s stop talking nonsense, and do you tell me one thing honestly.  Do you feel that it would be presumption?”

“To fall in love with you?”

“Leave that part of it out; I put my question stupidly.  I’m really curious to know whether you feel any—­any difference between your station and mine.”

“Do you?”

“Yes; I do,” she answered honestly, “when I think of it.  But you make it very hard for me to remember it when I’m with you.”

“Well, I don’t,” he said.  “I suppose I’m a socialist in all matters of that kind.  Not that I’ve ever given much thought to them.  You don’t have to out here.”

“No; you wouldn’t.  I don’t know that you would have to anywhere....  Are we almost home?”

“Three minutes’ more walking.  Tired?”

“Not a bit.  You know,” she added, “I really would like it if you’d write me once in a while.  There’s something here I’d like to keep a hold on.  It’s tonic.  I’ll make you write me.”  She flashed a smile at him.

“How?”

“By sending you books.  You’ll have to acknowledge them.”

“No.  I couldn’t take them.  I’d have to send them back.”