Mabin, with a book and a sunshade, sauntered slowly down the hill to the nearest gap in the cliff, and went down the steep descent to the sands. This was no paradise of nursemaids and babies, but a solitary nook beloved by quiet maiden ladies and sentimental couples. With rash disregard of the danger of sitting under a chalk cliff, Mabin found a seat on a rock worn smooth by the sea, opened her book and began--_not_ to read. The circumstances to which she found herself were far too interesting for her to be able to give herself up to the milder excitements of fiction. She sat with her open book on her lap and her eyes staring out at the sea, which was vividly blue in the strong sunshine, when she became suddenly conscious of a footstep she knew in her immediate neighborhood. Although she affected to be surprised when Rudolph appeared before her, she had known that he was approaching, and her heart began to beat very fast. He looked down at her between the spikes of her sunshade, pretending to be afraid to speak to her. “Good-morning,” said she at last. “I was wondering whether I dared say the same thing!” “Dared?” “Yes. After your treatment of me last night, I felt nervous.” “My treatment of you! What treatment?” “Why were you so unkind? Or mustn’t I ask why?” “You may ask, of course. But I can’t give you any answer, because I didn’t know that I was unkind.” “I wish I could believe that.” “Well, if you won’t believe it, I have nothing to say.” Rudolph was silent a few minutes. Then with a burst of explosive energy, he made up his mind. “No!” he cried so loudly that Mabin started, and threw himself down on the sand beside her, “I will not be daunted. I will encase myself in double snub-proof armor plates, and I will try to teach her that to be dignified it is not necessary to be unkind--and--yes, I will say it--absolutely rude.” Mabin became crimson, and the tears started to her eyes. She had not meant to be rude, but undoubtedly her behavior had laid her open to this accusation. “I am stupid, clumsy; I am rude without meaning it,” she said in a tone of such excessive humility and penitence that it was impossible to doubt her sincerity. “I am very sorry. But you shouldn’t take any notice of what I do or say. Nobody does at home. When I am more awkward and tiresome than usual, they always say: ‘Oh, it’s only Mabin!’ And then nobody minds.” “Ah, well, I can’t quite feel like that--that it’s only Mabin. When one likes a person, and wants to be good friends, very good friends with that person, just as one used to be when that person and one’s self were little things in short frocks and knickerbockers, it is very disheartening to find that person so determined to be--er--to be--er--so reserved that when one sits beside that person as I did last night, you know, she will only let one see so much of her right ear as to practically turn her back to one!” “I didn’t!”