Miss Jane's blood, which was not by any means a meagre decoction, but on the contrary rich and sweet enough yet, tingled to her finger ends. This man actually needed her! She laid aside her book, leant forward a little, resting her hands neatly in her lap. There was no smile, but she looked with a gentle earnestness, and the tang was gone from her tongue. 'How am I to forget?' she said. 'Tell me that, and I'll try. I suppose you have not forgotten what you said--very bitter words for any woman to digest. You would as soon think of marrying me as of marrying a young hoyden, who, from what I can make out, had just rejected you with insult; and the tone of voice--the tone of voice! But rise, Mr. Dempster.' 'I won't,' he said, looking her right in the face, and wondering that he had never noticed before how silky her brown hair was, and how kindly her brown eyes. 'I won't. Forget and then I'll rise.' 'How can I forget?' softly. 'Just as easily as I can rise. The mind is like legs; it can be bent and unbent.' Now Miss Jane was not very much of a prude; but Dempster was becoming too confident. He must be brought low again. So she lifted her book and said 'Shocking!' 'I beg your pardon,' he cried, vexed at finding the stumbling-block, which he had nearly rolled up to the top and kicked over the other side out of sight for ever, down at the bottom of the hill again. 'I didn't mean to say,' trying to twist his fingers into a hay-band, 'that your mind was like my legs--oh dear me! I've put both feet in it now!' Miss Jane hid her face completely, but it was to conceal a smile. Dempster smoothed his cheeks with both hands and held his head for a second or two, all of him gathered up in a more powerful effort to think than he had ever made in his life before. 'What can I do to make you forget?' he muttered. 'Ah!' he cried, after a second, pulling the book from Miss Jane's face as a child might have done, 'I think I'm going to have an idea.' 'You don't mean to say so!' said Miss Jane, leaning forward again in the same neat, pleasant way, with a laugh that was almost girlish. 'Yes, I believe I am,' said Dempster, sitting down on the calves of his legs with his hands on his knees, and looking up trustfully, like something in india-rubber. 'If I were to say,' he enunciated slowly, 'something contradicting emphatically what you can't at present forget, you might--eh--ah--forget?' 'Yes.' He had been about a foot from her, and he now scraped along the ground on his knees until he almost touched hers. 'You might try to say something of that kind,' she said, blushing, and with a little gasp. Now that it seemed to be coming she was put out; but, like a brave woman having her last chance, she kept her position and smiled encouragingly. 'Might I? Oh, thank you!' he cried with effusion.