regarded me for a while. "You would, too," she said at last, with an
alien gravity; "and that is why--Oh, Rob dear, you are out of my
dimension. I am rather afraid of you. I am a poor bewildered triangle
who is being wooed by a cube!" the girl wailed, and but half
humorously.

And I began to plead. It does not matter what I said. It never
mattered.

And persons more sensible than I found then far more important things
to talk about, such as General Alger's inefficiency, and General
Shafter's hammock, and "embalmed beef," and the folly of taking over
the Philippines, and Admiral von Diedrich's behavior, and the yellow
fever in our camps and the comparative claims of Messrs. Sampson and
Schley to be made rear-admiral; and everybody more or less was
demanding "an investigation," as the natural aftermath of a war.


5

Stella's mother had closed Bellemeade for the year, however, and they
were to spend the winter in Lichfield; and Stella, to reduplicate her
phrase, promised to "think it over very seriously."

But I suppose I had never any real chance against Peter Blagden. To
begin with,--though Stella herself, of course, would inherit plenty
of money when her mother died,--Peter was the only nephew of a
childless uncle who was popularly reported to "roll in wealth"; and in
addition, Peter was seven years older than I and notoriously
dissipated. No other girl of twenty would have hesitated between us