"More danger, I suppose," she thought impatiently.... "Well, what is this danger that seems to travel like one's shadow, dogging a girl through the world? It seems to me that if all the pleasant things of life are so full of danger I'd better find out what it is.... I might as well look for it so that I'll recognize it when I encounter it.... And learn to keep away." She scanned the flowery thickets attentively, looked behind her, then walked on. "If it's robbers they mean," she reflected, "I'm a good wrestler, and I can make any one of my four brothers-in-law look foolish.... Besides, the Park is full of fat policemen.... And if they mean I'm likely to get lost, or run over, or arrested, or poisoned with soda-water and bonbons--" She laughed to herself, swinging on in her free-limbed, wholesome beauty, scarcely noticing a man ahead, occupying a bench half hidden under the maple's foliage. "So I'll just look about for this danger they are all afraid of, and when I see it, I'll know what to do," she concluded, paying not the slightest heed to the man on the bench until he rose, as she passed him, and took off his hat. "You!" she exclaimed. She had stopped short, confronting him with the fearless and charming directness natural to her. "What an amusing accident," she said frankly. "The truth is," he began, "it is not exactly an accident." "Isn't it?" "N--no.... Are you offended?" "Offended? No. Should I be? Why?... Besides, I suppose when we have finished this conversation you are going the _other_ way." "I--no, I wasn't." "Oh! Then you are going to sit here?" "Y--yes--I suppose so.... But I don't want to." "Then why do you?" "Well, if I'm not going the _other_ way, and if I'm not going to remain here--" He looked at her, half laughing. She laughed, too, not exactly knowing why. "Don't you really mind my walking a little way with you?" he asked. "No, I don't. Why should I? Is there any reason? Am I not old enough to know why we should not walk together? Is it because the sun is going down? Is there what people call 'danger'?" He was so plainly taken aback that her fair young face became seriously curious. "_Is_ there any reason why you should not walk with me?" she persisted. The clear, direct gaze challenged him. He hesitated. "Yes, there is," he said. "A--a reason why you should not walk with me?" "Yes." "What is it?" And, as he did not find words to answer, she studied him for a moment, glanced up and down the woodland walk, then impulsively seated herself and motioned him to a place beside her on the bench. "Now," she said, "I'm in a position to find out just what this danger is that they all warn me about. _You_ know, don't you?" "Know what?" he answered. "About the danger that I seem to run every time I manage to enjoy myself.... And you _do_ know; I see it by the way you look at me--and your expression is just like their expression when they tell me not to do things I find most natural." "But--I--you----"