long and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark eyes looked
round at me, and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof.
"I have a presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do
wish you wouldn't; for things are so much nicer as they are."

I drew my chair a little nearer. "Now, how did you know that I
was going to propose?" I asked in genuine wonder.

"Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world
was ever taken unawares? But--oh, Ned, our friendship has been so
good and so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don't you feel how
splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able
to talk face to face as we have talked?"

"I don't know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with--
with the station-master." I can't imagine how that official came
into the matter; but in he trotted, and set us both laughing.
"That does not satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you,
and your head on my breast, and--oh, Gladys, I want----"

She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed
to demonstrate some of my wants. "You've spoiled everything,
Ned," she said. "It's all so beautiful and natural until this
kind of thing comes in! It is such a pity! Why can't you
control yourself?"

"I didn't invent it," I pleaded. "It's nature. It's love."

"Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different. I have never
felt it."