Henrietta blushed and looked away. Her lover, this stout, grim, hard-eyed man of business? She raised her hands to her cheeks and her heart fluttered so she could hardly breathe, while before her startled gaze swam the vision the years had been unconsciously forming. Had romance come to her thus late, in this guise? Was a middle-aged member of the New York Stock Exchange her prince? "Henrietta," he asked gently, leaning toward her, "shall I finish the story?" "Why no," said Henrietta, "there was no finish. It had just begun." "Just begun," whispered Bartlett, and took her suddenly into his arms. "Oh, please," begged Henrietta, feeling that modesty called for some remonstrance. "Please," he taunted. "When you were the goose girl and I was the prince, you didn’t say please." Henrietta laughed. "And neither did the prince," she dared him. "No decent lover would," said Bartlett, bending and kissing her full on her whimsical mouth. After some little time they saw the others reappear over the top of the hill. Henrietta had returned to her seat on the fence and Bartlett was beside her, his arm around her waist, her head on his shoulder with a simplicity truly bucolic. So might the Parkers’ shifty-eyed stable-boy be wooing the slatternly maid-servant in some secluded place behind the barn. Henrietta straightened quickly and blushing crimson after the manner of the maid-servant, raised her hands to her hair so that one side of her coiffure might not appear unnecessarily flattened before the sharp eyes of the youthful Billy. "Aren’t we silly?" said she, glancing at Bartlett with the same expression with which the maid-servant would have glanced at the stable-boy. "Why silly?" demanded Bartlett. "We love each other, don’t we? Why shouldn’t I put my arm around you?" "Oh," said Henrietta, "you should, but—er—er we seem so old for such things." "Old?" Bartlett laughed. "Love is the oldest thing in the world." "I know," agreed Henrietta, "but not before people." "Why not before people? People have become too artificial. They must not love, nor hate, nor have any feelings, apparently, before people. Feelings are interesting and we ought to show them more." Henrietta laughed. "Oh, you are silly, silly, silly. I never knew a New York broker could be so silly, so mushy." "There’s not a man living whom the right woman can’t make mushy. Women never realize how silly men are at bottom, my own. They are frightened by our exteriors, by the ingrain fear of the chattel for her master, born in women since Eve handed the larger share of the apple to Adam." "I always thought that I would be dignified and sweet—" "You are, my love." "No, I am as silly as you. I put my head on your shoulder just as these girls do whom you see in Central Park on Sunday afternoons. I never thought that I would be like that." "You have never loved before—" "Indeed, I have. I have loved nearly every one I have ever met. Most all girls do."