“If that is your opinion of me, Mr. Durgin,” she said, very gravely, “I am sorry.  May I remark that I don’t see why you come, then?”

“I can tell you,” said Jeff, and he advanced upon her where she sat so abruptly that she started and shrank back in her chair.  “I come because you’ve got brains, and you’re the only girl that has—­here.”  They were Alan’s words, almost his words, and for an instant she thought of her brother, end wondered what he would think of this jay’s praising her in his terms.  “Because,” Jeff went on, “you’ve got more sense and nonsense—­than all the women here put together.  Because it’s better than a play to hear you talk—­and act; and because you’re graceful—­and fascinating, and chic, and—­Good-night, Miss Lynde.”

He put out his hand, but she did not take it as she rose haughtily.  “We’ve said good-night once.  I prefer to say good-bye this time.  I’m sure you will understand why after this I cannot see you again.”  She seemed to examine him for the effect of these words upon him before she went on.

“No, I don’t understand,” he answered, coolly; “but it isn’t necessary I should; and I’m quite willing to say good-bye, if you prefer.  You haven’t been so frank with me as I have with you; but that doesn’t make any difference; perhaps you never meant to be, or couldn’t be, if you meant.  Good-bye.”  He bowed and turned toward the door.

She fluttered between him and it.  “I wish to know what you accuse me of!”

“I?  Nothing.”

“You imply that I have been unjust toward you.”

“Oh no!”

“And I can’t let you go till you prove it.”

“Prove to a woman that—­Will you let me pass?”

“No!” She spread her slender arms across the doorway.

“Oh, very well!” Jeff took her hands and put them both in the hold of one of his large, strong bands.  Then, with the contact, it came to him, from a varied experience of girls in his rustic past, that this young lady, who was nothing but a girl after all, was playing her comedy with a certain purpose, however little she might know it or own it.  He put his other large, strong hand upon her waist, and pulled her to him and kissed her.  Another sort of man, no matter what he had believed of her, would have felt his act a sacrilege then and there.  Jeff only knew that she had not made the faintest straggle against him; she had even trembled toward him, and he brutally exulted in the belief that he had done what she wished, whether it was what she meant or not.

She, for her part, realized that she had been kissed as once she had happened to see one of the maids kissed by the grocer’s boy at the basement door.  In an instant this man had abolished all her defences of family, of society, of personality, and put himself on a level with her in the most sacred things of life.  Her mind grasped the fact and she realized it intellectually, while as yet all her emotions seemed paralyzed.