And Edward Hauptwanger, quite triumphant now, saying to the messenger before four cronies who knew of his present pursuit of Ida: “Oh, that’s all right. Just tell her I’ll be over after a while.” And then as eight o’clock neared, ambling off in the direction of the Zobel home. And as he left one of his companions remarking: “Say, whaddya know? He’s got that Zobel girl on the run now. She’s writing him notes now. Didn’t ya see the coon bring it up? Don’t it beat hell?” And the others as enviously, amazedly and contemptuously inquiring: “Whaddya know?” And so, under June trees in King Lake Park, once more another conference. “Oh, darling, how could you treat me so, how could you? Oh, my dear, dear darling.” And he replying—“Oh, sure, sure, it was all right, only what do you think I’m made of? Say, have a heart, I’m human, ain’t I? I’ve got some feelings same as anybody else. Ain’t I crazy about you and ain’t you crazy about me? Well, then—besides—well, say....” A long pharisaical and deluding argument as one might guess, with all the miseries and difficulties of restrained and evaded desire most artfully suggested—yet with no harm meant, of course. Oh, no. But again, on her part, the old foolish, terrorized love plea. And the firm assurance on his part that if anything went wrong—why, of course. But why worry about that now? Gee, she was the only girl he knew who worried about anything like that. And finally a rendezvous at Little Shark River, with his father’s car as the conveyance. And later others and others. And she—because of her weak, fearsome yielding in the first instance—and then her terrorized contemplation of possible consequences in the second—clinging to him in all too eager and hence cloying fashion. She was his now—all his. Oh, he would never, never desert her, now, would he? But he, once satisfied—his restless and overweening ego comforted by another victory—turning with a hectic and chronic, and for him uncontrollable sense of satiety, as well as fear of complications and burden—to other phases of beauty—other fields and relationships where there was no such danger. For after all—one more girl. One more experience. And not so greatly different from others that had gone before it. And this in the face of the magic of her meaning before capitulation. He did not understand it. He could not. He did not even trouble to think about it much. But so it was. And with no present consciousness or fear of being involved in any early and unsatisfactory complications which might require marriage—on the contrary a distinct and definite opposition to any such complication at any time, anywhere.