“There are a lot of formalities and bridesmaids and ministers and things that have got to be taken into consideration before I am yours.  And anyway there is no necessity for mussing me up so.  You might as well know now as later that I utterly loathe this cave-man stuff.  And really, Harold, there is nothing about your appearance that suggests a cave-man, which is probably one reason that I like you.”

“Like me?” exclaimed the young man.  “I thought you loved me.”

“I have to like you in order to love you, don’t I?” she parried.  “And one certainly has to like the man she is going to marry.”

“Well,” grumbled Mr. Bince, “you might be more enthusiastic about it.”

“I prefer,” explained the girl, “to be loved decorously.  I do not care to be pawed or clawed or crumpled.  After we have been married for fifteen or twenty years and are really well acquainted—­”

“Possibly you will permit me to kiss you,” Bince finished for her.

“Don’t be silly, Harold,” she retorted.  “You have kissed me so much now that my hair is all down, and my face must be a sight.  Lips are what you are supposed to kiss with—­you don’t have to kiss with your hands.”

“Possibly I was a little bit rough.  I am sorry,” apologized the young man.  “But when a fellow has just been told by the sweetest girl in the world that she will marry him, it’s enough to make him a little bit crazy.”

“Not at all,” rejoined Miss Compton.  “We should never forget the stratum of society to which we belong, and what we owe to the maintenance of the position we hold.  My father has always impressed upon me the fact that gentlemen or gentlewomen are always gentle-folk under any and all circumstances and conditions.  I distinctly recall his remark about one of his friends, whom he greatly admired, to this effect:  that he always got drunk like a gentleman.  Therefore we should do everything as gentle-folk should do things, and when we make love we should make love like gentlefolk, and not like hod-carriers or cavemen.”

“Yes,” said the young man; “I’ll try to remember.”

It was a little after nine o’clock when Harold Bince arose to leave.

“I’ll drive you home,” volunteered the girl.  “Just wait, and I’ll have Barry bring the roadster around.”

“I thought we should always do the things that gentle-folk should do,” said Bince, grinning, after being seated safely in the car.  They had turned out of the driveway into Lincoln Parkway.

“What do you mean?” asked Elizabeth.

“Is it perfectly proper for young ladies to drive around the streets of a big city alone after dark?”

“But I’m not alone,” she said.

“You will be after you leave me at home.”

“Oh, well, I’m different.”

“And I’m glad that you are!” exclaimed Bince fervently.  “I wouldn’t love you if you were like the ordinary run.”

Bince lived at one of the down-town clubs, and after depositing him there and parting with a decorous handclasp the girl turned her machine and headed north for home.  At Erie Street came a sudden loud hissing of escaping air.