"You did have a sort of fancy for him the first time you saw him, didn't you?" asked Mrs. Ellison, coaxingly, while forcing herself to be systematic and coherent, by a mental strain of which no idea can be given. "Yes," said Kitty, yet more faintly, adding, "but I can't tell just what sort of a fancy it was. I suppose I admired him for being handsome and stylish, and for having such exquisite manners." "Go on," said Mrs. Ellison. "And after you got acquainted with him?" "Why, you know we've talked that over once already, Fanny." "Yes, but we oughtn't to skip anything now," replied Mrs. Ellison, in a tone of judicial accuracy which made Kitty smile. But she quickly became serious again, and said, "Afterwards I couldn't tell whether to like him or not, or whether he wanted me to. I think he acted very strangely for a person in--love. I used to feel so troubled and oppressed when I was with him. He seemed always to be making himself agreeable under protest." "Perhaps that was just your imagination, Kitty." "Perhaps it was; but it troubled me just the same." "Well, and then?" "Well, and then after that day of the Montgomery expedition, he seemed to change altogether, and to try always to be pleasant, and to do everything he could to make me like him. I don't know how to account for it. Ever since then he's been extremely careful of me, and behaved--of course without knowing it--as if I belonged to him already. Or maybe I've imagined that too. It's very hard to tell what has really happened the last two weeks." Kitty was silent, and Mrs. Ellison did not speak at once. Presently she asked, "Was his acting as if you belonged to him disagreeable?" "I can't tell. I think it was rather presuming. I don't know why he did it." "Do you respect him?" demanded Mrs. Ellison. "Why, Fanny, I've always told you that I did respect some things in him." Mrs. Ellison had the facts before her, and it rested upon her to sum them up, and do something with them. She rose to a sitting posture, and confronted her task. "Well, Kitty, I'll tell you: I don't really know what to think. But I can say this: if you liked him at first, and then didn't like him, and afterwards he made himself more agreeable, and you didn't mind his behaving as if you belonged to him, and you respected him, but after all didn't think him fascinating--" "He _is_ fascinating--in a kind of way. He was, from the beginning. In a story his cold, snubbing, putting-down ways would have been perfectly fascinating." "Then why didn't you take him?" "Because," answered Kitty, between laughing and crying, "it isn't a story, and I don't know whether I like him." "But do you think you might get to like him?" "I don't know. His asking brings back all the doubts I ever had of him, and that I've been forgetting the past two weeks. I can't tell whether I like him or not. If I did, shouldn't I trust him more?"