“What have you done to me!” she murmured.

At sight of the tears he collapsed.  “Ah, don’t!” he whispered brokenly.  “You break my heart!  My darling love!  What is the matter?”

“I am a fool—­a fool!—­a fool!” she sobbed tempestuously.  “To have given in to you!  You will despise me!”

He slipped to the floor at her feet.  He strove desperately to comfort her.  Tenderness lent eloquence to his clumsy, unaccustomed tongue.

“Ah, don’t say that!  It’s like sticking a knife in me!  My lovely one!  As if I could!  You are everything to me!  I have nothing in the world but you!  Forgive me for being so rough!  I couldn’t help it!  I couldn’t go by anything you said.  I had to find out for sure!  It had to happen!  What does it matter whether it was in a day or a year?  The minute I saw you I knew how it was.  I knew I had to have you or live like a priest till I died.”

Colina was not to be comforted.  “You think so now!” she said.  “Later, when you have tired of me a little, or if we quarreled, you would remember that I—­I was too easily won!”

“Ah, don’t!” he cried exasperated.  “If you say it again I’ll have to swear.  What more can I say?  I love you like my life!  I could not despise you without despising myself!  I don’t know how to put it.  I sound like a fool!  But—­but this is what I mean.  You make me seem worth while to myself.”

Colina’s hands stole to her breast.  “Ah!  If I could believe you!” she breathed.

“Give me time!” he begged.  “What good does talking do!  What I do will show you!”

Little by little she allowed him to console her.  Her arm stole around his shoulders, her head was lowered until her cheek lay in his hair.

They came down to earth.  Ambrose seated himself beside her, and looking in her shamed face laughed softly and deep.  “You fraud,” he said.

Colina hid her face.  “Don’t!” she begged.

He laughed more.

“What are you laughing at?” she demanded.

“To think how you scared me,” he said.  “With your grand clothes and high and mighty airs.  I had to dig my toes into the floor to keep from cutting and running.  And it was all bluff!”

“Scared you!” said Colina.  “I never in my life knew a man so utterly regardless and brutal!”

“You like it,” he said.  Colina blushed.

“I had no line to go on,” said Ambrose with his engaging simplicity.  “I never made love to any girls.  I haven’t read many books either.  I guess that’s all guff, anyway.  I didn’t know how the thing ought to be carried through.  But something told me if I knuckled under to you the least bit it would be all day with Ambrose.”

They laughed together.

John Gaviller’s step sounded on the porch outside.  They sprang up aghast.  They had completely forgotten his existence.

“Oh, Heavens!” whispered Colina.  “He has eyes like a lynx!”