His eyes now for the first time were truly hard. His intention to end this by one fell blow was very definite. And the blow was sufficient at the moment to half unseat the romantic and all but febrile reason of this girl, who up to this hour had believed so foolishly in love. Why, how could this be? The horror of it! The implied disaster. And then half in understanding, half in befuddled unreason, exclaiming: “But, Ed! Ed! You can’t mean that. Why, it isn’t true! You know it isn’t! You promised. You swore. You know I never wanted to—until you made me. Why ... oh, what’ll I do now? My father! I don’t know what he’ll do to me or to you either. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” And frantically, and without sufficient balance to warrant the name of reason, beginning to wring her hands and twist and sway in a kind of physical as well as mental agony. At this Hauptwanger, more determined than ever to frighten her away from him once and for all, if possible, exclaiming: “Oh, cut that stuff! I never said I’d marry you, and you know it!” and turning on his heel and leaving her to rejoin the chattering group of youths on the corner, with whom, before her arrival, he had been talking. And as much to sustain himself in this fatal decision as well as to carry it off before them all, adding: “Gee, these skirts! It does beat hell, don’t it?” Yet now a little fearsome, if vain and contemptuous, for the situation was beginning to take on a gloomy look. But just the same when Johnny Martin, one of his companions and another aspirant for street corner and Lothario honors, remarked: “I saw her here last night lookin’ for you, Ed. Better look out. One of these skirts is likely to do somepin to you one of these days”—he calmly extracted a cigarette from a silver cigarette case and without a look in the direction of the half-swooning Ida, said: “Is that so? Well, maybe. We’ll see first.” And then with a nonchalant nod in the direction of Ida, who, too tortured to even retreat, was standing quite still, exclaimed: “Gee, these Germans! She’s got an old man that wouldn’t ever let her find out anything and now because she thinks there’s something wrong with her she blames me.” And just then, another intimate approaching, and with news of two girls who were to meet them somewhere later, exclaiming: “Hello, Skate! Everything set? All right, then. We might as well go along. S’long, fellas.” And stepping briskly and vigorously away. But the stricken and shaken Ida still loitered under the already partially denuded September trees. And with the speeding street and auto cars with their horns and bells and the chattering voices and shuffling feet of pedestrians and the blazing evening lights making a kind of fanfare of color and sound. Was it cold? Or was it only herself who was numb and cold? He would not marry her! He had never said he would! How could he say that now? And her father to deal with—and her physical condition to be considered!