She pressed her nose to the pane and then breathed on it, making a misty screen between herself and the outside upon which she wrote my initials, rubbed them out, then breathed on the window again and wrote her own. Her face was like a small wax flower in the moonlight. I had drawn so close, moved by her romantic call, that my body almost touched hers. Then I slipped an arm about her waist and was about to kiss her when I heard my sister’s voice: “Now, Al and Theo, you come back!” “We must go,” she said shamefacedly, and as she started I ventured to touch her hand. She looked at me and smiled, and we went back to the other room. I waited eagerly for other solitary moments. Because the festivities were too general and inclusive there was no other opportunity that evening, but the next morning, church claiming some and sleep others, there was a half-hour or more in which I was alone with her in the front room, looking over the family album. I realized that by now she was as much drawn to me as I to her, and that, as in the case of my Scotch maid, I was master if I chose so to be. I was so wrought up in the face of this opportunity, however, that I scarcely had courage to do that which I earnestly believed I could do. As we stood over the album looking at the pictures I toyed first with the strings of her apron and then later, finding no opposition, allowed my hand to rest gently at her waist. Still no sign of opposition or even consciousness. I thrilled from head to toe. Then I closed my arm gently about her waist, and when it became noticeably tight she looked up and smiled. “You’d better watch out,” she said. “Some one may come.” “Do you like me a little?” I pleaded, almost choking. “I think so. I think you’re very nice, anyhow. But you mustn’t,” she said. “Some one may come in,” and as I drew her to me she pretended to resist, maneuvering her cheek against my mouth as she pulled away. She was just in time, for C—— came into the back parlor and said: “Oh, there you are! I wondered where you were.” “I was just looking over your album,” Alice said. “Yes,” I added, “I was showing it to her.” “Oh yes,” laughed my sister sarcastically. “You and Al—I know what you two were trying to do. You!” she exclaimed, giving me a push. “And Al, the silly! She has a beau already!” She laughed and went off, but I, hugely satisfied with myself, swaggered into the adjoining room. Beau or no beau, Alice belonged to me. Youthful vanity was swelling my chest. I was more of a personage for having had it once more proved to me that I was not unattractive to girls. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III