To think that I, maybe _I_ will be able to flaunt the very thing in her face that she has all these years held over me—the very thing, even to its being a son of the very scoundrel that actually bent over the cradle of my girlhood and blinded me with the lies that lit up his face." A few yards away the pair had paused. Chester had taken the girl’s hand and was gently stroking it as it lay restlessly in his big palm. For a moment Ann lost sight of them, for she was stealthily creeping behind the low, hanging boughs of the bushes to get nearer. She found herself presently behind a big bowlder. She no longer saw the couple, but could hear their voices quite distinctly. "You won’t even let me hold your hand," she heard him say. "You make me miserable, Virginia. When I am at home alone, I get to thinking over your coldness and indifference, and it nearly drives me crazy. Why did you jerk your hand away so quickly just now?" "I don’t see what you were talking to a drummer about me for, in a public place like that," the girl answered, in pouting tones. "Why, it was this way, Virginia—now don’t be silly!" protested Chester. "You see, this Masters and I were at college together, and rather intimate, and down at the store we were standing talking when you came in the front to buy something. He said he thought you were really the prettiest girl he had ever seen, and he was begging me to introduce him to you." "Introduce him!" Virginia snapped. "I don’t want to know him. And so you stood there talking about me!" "It was only a minute, Virginia, and I couldn’t help it," Chester declared. "I didn’t think you’d care to know him, but I had to treat him decently. I told him how particular your mother was, and that I couldn’t manage it. Oh, he’s simply daft about you. He passed you on the road this morning, and hasn’t been able to talk about anything since. But who could blame him, Virginia? You can form no idea of how pretty you are in the eyes of other people. Frankly, in a big gathering of women you’d create a sensation. You’ve got what every society woman in the country would die to have, perfect beauty of face and form, and the most remarkable part about it is your absolute unconsciousness of it all. I’ve seen good-looking women in the best sets in Augusta and Savannah and Atlanta, but they all seem to be actually making up before your very eyes. Do you know, it actually makes me sick to see a woman all rigged out in a satin gown so stiff that it looks like she’s encased in some metallic painted thing that moves on rollers. It’s beauty unadorned that you’ve got, and it’s the real thing." "I don’t want to talk about myself eternally," said Virginia, rather sharply, the eavesdropper thought, "and I don’t see why you seem to think I do. When you are sensible and talk to me about what we have both read and thought, I like you better."