he said more she might construe it as a request, that she should
immediately lay his proposal before Mabel. With a despairing, haunted
look he sought the board walk.

Carpenters were hammering and sawing, painters were busy in the booths,
a few old ladies sat about in the sun, here and there a happy youngster
dug in the sand with a tin shovel. Decatur envied them all. They were
sane, rational persons, who were not likely to be interviewed and
trapped into saying fool things. Their acts were not liable to be
misconstrued.

Seeing a pier jutting out, he heedlessly followed it to the very end.
And there, on one of the seats built for summer guests, he found Jane.

"Where is Mabel?" she asked, anxiously.

"She is having her hair done and her nails polished, I believe," said
Decatur, gloomily, dropping down beside Jane. "She is being prepared, as
nearly as I can gather, to receive a proposal of marriage."

"Ah! Then you--" She turned to him inquiringly.

"It appears so now," he admitted. "I have been talking to her mother."

"Oh, I see." She said it quietly, gently, in a tone of submission.

"But you don't see," he protested. "No one sees; that is, no one sees
things as they really are. Do you think, Jane, that you could listen to
me for a few moments without jumping at conclusions, without assuming
that you know exactly what I am going to say before I have said it?"