"Can't you ever forget that girl in Yankee-land?" she said. "She
ain't here, is she, and why shouldn't you steal a little harmless
fun? There's men who'd give their little finger to win a kiss from
me--and you sit there so glum and solemn, who could have a bushel
for the asking!"

For all Frank's devotion to Florence he could not but be flattered
at being wooed in this headlong fashion. He was only a man after
all, and she was the prettiest girl in port. He did not resist
when she suddenly put her arms around him and pressed his head
against her bosom, calling him her boy and her darling; but
remained passive in her embrace, pleased and yet ashamed, and
touched to the quick with self-contempt.

"You mustn't," he said, freeing himself. "Cassie, it's wrong--it's
dreadful. You mustn't think I love you, because I don't."

"Yes, but I am going to make you," she said with splendid
effrontery, looking at herself in the glass and patting her
rumpled hair. "See what you have done to me, you bad boy!"

Had she been older or more sophisticated, Frank would have been
shocked at this reversal of the sexes. But in her self-avowed and
unashamed love for him she was more like a child than a woman; and
her good-humour and laughter besides seemed somehow to belittle
her words and redeem the affair from any seriousness. Frank tried
to stay away, for his conscience pricked him and he did not care
to drift into such an unusual and ambiguous relation with
Derwent's handsome daughter. But Cassie was always on the watch
for him and he could not escape from the machine-works without