But at last we had a minute, and I went out to the verandah, which was closed in with awnings.  He had to follow, of course, and I turned and faced him.

“Now” I said, “this has got to stop.”

“I don’t understand you, Bab.”

“You do, perfectly well,” I stormed.  “I can’t stand it.  I am going crazy.”

“Oh,” he said slowly.  “I see.  I’ve been dancing too much with the little girl with the eyes!  Honestly, Bab, I was only doing it to disarm suspicion.  My every thought is of you.”

“I mean,” I said, as firmly as I could, “that this whole thing has got to stop.  I can’t stand it.”

“Am I to understand,” he said solemnly, “that you intend to end everything?”

I felt perfectly wild and helpless.

“After that Letter!” he went on.  “After that sweet Letter!  You said, you know, that you were mad to see me, and that—­it is almost too sacred to repeat, even to you—­that you would always love me.  After that Confession I refuse to agree that all is over.  It can never be over.”

“I daresay I am losing my mind,” I said.  “It all sounds perfectly natural.  But it doesn’t mean anything.  There can’t be any Harold Valentine; because I made him up.  But there is, so there must be.  And I am going crazy.”

“Look here,” he stormed, suddenly quite raving, and throwing out his right hand.  It would have been terrably dramatic, only he had a glass of punch in it.  “I am not going to be played with.  And you are not going to jilt me without a reason.  Do you mean to deny everything?  Are you going to say, for instance, that I never sent you any violets?  Or gave you my Photograph, with an—­er—­touching inscription on it?” Then, appealingly, “You can’t mean to deny that Photograph, Bab!”

And then that lanky wretch of an Eddie Perkins brought me a toy Baloon, and I had to dance, with my heart crushed.

Nevertheless, I ate a fair supper.  I felt that I needed Strength.  It was quite a grown-up supper, with boullion and creamed chicken and baked ham and sandwitches, among other things.  But of course they had to show it was a `kid’ party, after all.  For instead of coffee we had milk.

Milk!  When I was going through a tradgedy.  For if it is not a tradgedy to be engaged to a man one never saw before, what is it?

All through the refreshments I could feel that his eyes were on me.  And I hated him.  It was all well enough for Jane to say he was handsome.  She wasn’t going to have to marry him.  I detest dimples in chins.  I always have.  And anybody could see that it was his first mustache, and soft, and that he took it round like a mother pushing a new baby in a perambulater.  It was sickning.

I left just after supper.  He did not see me when I went upstairs, but he had missed me, for when Hannah and I came down, he was at the door, waiting.  Hannah was loaded down with silly favors, and lagged behind, which gave him a chance to speak to me.  I eyed him coldly and tried to pass him, but I had no chance.