“I do prefer you!” I cried, furious to be so misconstrued.  “I love only one, and that one is you!”

“Oh, Euan, yours is a most broad and catholic heart; and any pretty penitent can find her refuge there; and any petticoat can flutter it!?’

“Yours can.  Even your fluttering rags did that!”

She flushed:  “Oh, if I were truly weak and silly enough to listen to you——­”

“You never do.  You give me no hope.”

“I do give you hope!  I am ever ladling it out to you as they ladle soupaan to the militia!  I say to you continually that never have I so devotedly loved any man——­”

“That is not love!” I said, furious.

“I do not pretend it to be that same boiling and sputtering sentiment which men call love——­”

“Then if it be not true love, why do you care what I whisper to any woman?”

“I do not care,” she said, biting the rose-leaf lower lip.  “You may whisper any treason you please to any h-heartless woman who snares your f-fancy.”

“You do not truly care?”

“I have said it.  No, I do not care!  Court whom you please!  But if you do, my faith in man is dead, and that’s flat!”

“What!”

“Certainly....  After your burning vows so lately made to me.  But men have no shame.  I know that much.”

“But,” said I, bewildered, “you say that you care nothing for my vows!”

“Did I say so?”

“Yes—­ you——­”

“No, I did not say so!...  I—­ I love your vows.”

“How can you love my vows and not me?” I demanded angrily.

“I don’t know I can do it, but I do....  But I will love them no longer if you make the selfsame vows to her.”

“Now,” said I, perplexed and exasperated, “what does it profit a man when a maid confesses that she loves to hear his vows, but loves not him who makes them?”

“For me to love even your vows,” said she, looking at me sideways, “is something gained for you—­ or so it seems to me.  And were I minded to play the coquette—­ as some do——­”

“You play it every minute!”

“I?  When, pray?”

“When I came to Croghan’s this afternoon there were you the centre of ’em all; and one ass in boots and spurs to wave your fan for you—­ oh, la!  And another of Franklin’s, in his Wyandotte finery, to fetch and carry; and a dozen more young fools all ogling and sighing at your feet——­”

Her lips parted in a quick, nervous laugh: 

“Was that the way I seemed?  Truly, Euan?  Were you jealous?  And I scarce heeding one o’ them, but my eyes on the doorway, watching for you!”

“Oh, Lois!  How can you say that to me——­”

“Because it was so!  Why did you not come to me at once?  I was waiting!”

“There were so many—­ and you seemed so gay with them—­ so careless—­ not even glancing at me——­”

“I saw you none the less.  I never let you escape the range of my vision.”