He turned back to the fly leaf and began to nail the last fallacy a little tighter to the cross. The girl regarded him, first with amused impatience, then with a vexed frown, finally with a wistful regret. He was so very old for his age, she thought; he could not be much beyond thirty; his hair was thick and full of waves, his eyes bright and clear, his complexion not yet divested of all youth's relics. "Now, Miss May, I am at your service," said the philosopher, with a lingering look at his impaled fallacy. And he closed the book, keeping it, however, on his knee. The girl sat down just opposite to him. "It's a very important thing I want to ask you," she began, tugging at a tuft of grass, "and it's very--difficult, and you mustn't tell anyone I asked you; at least, I'd rather you didn't." "I shall not speak of it; indeed, I shall probably not remember it," said the philosopher. "And you mustn't look at me, please, while I'm asking you." "I don't think I was looking at you, but if I was I beg your pardon," said the philosopher apologetically. She pulled the tuft of grass right out of the ground and flung it from her with all her force. "Suppose a man----" she began. "No, that's not right." "You can take any hypothesis you please," observed the philosopher, "but you must verify it afterward, of course." "Oh, do let me go on. Suppose a girl, Mr. Jerningham--I wish you wouldn't nod." "It was only to show that I followed you." "Oh, of course you 'follow me,' as you call it. Suppose a girl had two lovers--you're nodding again--or, I ought to say, suppose there were two men who might be in love with a girl." "Only two?" asked the philosopher. "You see, any number of men MIGHT be in love with----" "Oh, we can leave the rest out," said Miss May, with a sudden dimple; "they don't matter." "Very well," said the philosopher. "If they are irrelevant, we will put them aside." "Suppose, then, that one of these men was--oh, AWFULLY in love with the girl--and--and proposed, you know----" "A moment!" said the philosopher, opening a notebook. "Let me take down his proposition. What was it?" "Why, proposed to her--asked her to marry him," said the girl, with a stare. "Dear me! How stupid of me! I forgot that special use of the word. Yes?" "The girl likes him pretty well, and her people approve of him and all that, you know." "That simplifies the problem," said the philosopher, nodding again. "But she's not in--in love with him, you know. She doesn't REALLY care for him--MUCH. Do you understand?" "Perfectly. It is a most natural state of mind." "Well, then, suppose that there's another man--what are you writing?" "I only put down (B.)--like that," pleaded the philosopher, meekly exhibiting his notebook. She looked at him in a sort of helpless exasperation, with just a smile somewhere in the background of it.