“I’d like to know what ails him!” she exclaimed, somewhat angrily. “He shan’t keep up this running away from me!” Then she followed Hodge and ran him down back where the shadows were thickest. She grasped him with both hands. “Look here, Bart Hodge!” she exclaimed; “do you think I’m going to eat you up? or what ails you? You run away from me as if you regarded me as a snake!” Hodge stood there, silent, looking at her. She gave him a shake. “Stop it!” she cried. “I’m tired of it! I don’t like it! I won’t have it! Will you be good enough, Mr. Bart Hodge, to treat me differently?” “I don’t know,” he said, obstinately. “Why should I?” “Why shouldn’t you?” “There is every reason why I shouldn’t.” “Name a few of them.” “To begin with, you regard me as a mere boy—a stripling who does not know his own mind. You insulted me when I told you of my admiration for you. You laughed at me. You might as well have said ‘calf love.’ I won’t stand for that kind of treatment from you or any other woman!” She did not laugh at him now, for he was beginning to realize that he could not be treated like a boy. She could not flatter and flirt with him as she did with Billy Wynne. His admiration for her was not of the sort to endure that kind of cajolery. “Mr. Hodge,” she said, “if I did anything to offend you, if I was offensive, I beg your pardon.” “Yes, you beg my pardon, but you will go on regarding me as an addle-pated boy. If I dared open my lips to honestly tell you of my admiration, you would laugh at me! Oh, I know! You are like them all—only handsomer and colder!” “You have a fancy that you have read me, Bart Hodge, but let me tell you that you are a very poor judge of human nature. You seldom read anybody aright.” “It’s not such a difficult thing to read a woman,” he sneered. “They are all alike in one respect—they are as treacherous and fickle as cats! They think they love. They enjoy being petted and caressed. They purr and show all sorts of affection, but they are shallow. No more than a cat do they know true affection! As ready as a cat are they to sink their claws into the hand that caresses them! And when their master is gone, like a cat, they seek petting and fondling from another. They cannot be constant till the master returns; they cannot be true to death and after—like a faithful dog!” Stella Stanley was rather high-spirited, and it made her “hot” to hear anybody talk in such a manner.