At the end of that speech she paled slightly and her breath came quickly.  She looked bold, provocative, expectant, yet sincere.  Child or woman, she had to be taken seriously.  Here indeed was the mystery that had baffled Lane.  He realized his opportunity, like a flash all his former thought and conjecture about this girl returned to him.

“You would.  Well, I’m highly flattered.  Why, may I ask?”

“Because I’ve fallen for you,” she replied, leaning close to him.  “That’s the main reason, I guess....  But another is, I want you to tell me all about yourself—­in the war, you know.”

“I’d be glad to—­if we get to be real friends,” he said, thoughtfully.  “I don’t understand you.”

“And I’ll say I don’t just get you,” she retorted.  “What do you want?  Have you forgotten the silver platter?”

She turned away with a restless quivering.  She had shown no shyness.  She was bold, intense, absolutely without fear; and however stimulating or attractive the situation evidently was, it was neither new nor novel to her.  Some strange leaven worked deep in her.  Lane could put no other interpretation on her words and actions than that she expected him to kiss her.

“Bessy Bell, look at me,” said Lane, earnestly.  “You’ve said a mouthful, as the slang word goes.  I’m sort of surprised, you remember.  Bessy, you’re not a girl whose head is full of excelsior.  You’ve got brains.  You can think....  Now, if you really like me—­and I believe you—­try to understand this.  I’ve been away so long.  All is changed.  I don’t know how to take girls.  I’m ill—­and unhappy.  But if I could be your friend and could help you a little—­please you—­why it’d be good for me.”

“Daren, they tell me you’re going to die,” she returned, breathlessly.  Her glance was brooding, dark, pregnant with purple fire.

“Bessy, don’t believe all you hear.  I’m not—­not so far gone yet.”

“They say you’re game, too.”

“I hope so, Bessy.”

“Oh, you make me think.  You must believe me a pill.  I wanted you to—­to fall for me hard....  That bunch of sapheads have spoiled me, I’ll say.  Daren, I’m sick of them.  All they want to do is mush.  I like tennis, riding, golf.  I want to do things.  But it’s too hot, or this, or that.  Yet they’ll break their necks to carry a girl off to some roadhouse, and dance—­dance till you’re melted.  Then they stop along the river to go bathing.  I’ve been twice.  You see, I have to sneak away, or lie to mother and say I’ve gone to Gail’s or somewhere.”

“Bathing, at night?” queried Lane, curiously.

“Sure thing.  It’s spiffy, in the dark.”

“Of course you took your bathing suits?”

“Hot dog!  That would be telling.”

Lane dropped his head and studied the dust at his feet.  His heart beat thick and heavy.  Through this girl the truth was going to be revealed to him.  It seemed on the moment that he could not look into her eyes.  She scattered his wits.  He tried to erase from his mind every impression of her, so that he might begin anew to understand her.  And the very first, succeeding this erasure, was a singular idea that she was the opposite of romantic.