"Then you had _better_ know, and at _once,"_ says Miss Bolton, with
decision.

The whole affair seems to be trembling in the balance. A sense of
amusement has most unfortunately seized on Rylton, and is shaking
him to his very heart's core. To marry a girl who even objected to a
kiss! It sounds like a French play. He subdues his untimely mirth by
an effort, and says gravely, "How can I promise you that I shall
never want to kiss you? I may grow very fond of you in time, and
you--but, of course, that is far more improbable--may grow fond of
me."

"Even so," begins she hotly. She pauses, however, as if some thought
had struck her. "Well, let it stay so," says she. "If ever I do grow
to like you as much as you fancy, why, then you may kiss
me--sometimes."

"That's a bargain," says he.

Again he suppresses a desire to laugh. It seems to him that she is
intensely interesting in some way.

"In the meantime," says he, with quite a polite air, "may I not kiss
you now?"

"No!" says she. It is the lightest monosyllable, but fraught with
much energy. She tilts the shoulder nearest to him, and peeps at him
over it, with a half-merry little air.