“I've made up my mind to tell you a secret,” he said, falteringly. “I've come near it several times and backed out. It's a subject I don't know how to handle. It's about a woman, Carson. You know I'm not a ladies' man. I don't call on women; I don't take them buggy-riding; I don't dance with them, or even know how to fire soft things at them like you and Keith, but I've had my experience.” “It certainly is a surprise to me,” Dwight said, sympathetically, and then in the shadow of Garner's seriousness he found himself unable to make further comment. “I reckon you'll lose all respect for me for thinking there was a ghost of a chance in that particular quarter,” Garner pursued, without meeting his companion's eye. “But, Carson, my boy, there is a certain woman that every man who knows her has loved or is still loving. Keith's crazy about her, though he has given up all hope as I did long ago, and even poor Bob Smith thinks he's in luck if she will only listen to one of his new songs or let him do her some favor. We all love her, Carson, because she is so sweet and kind to us--” “You mean--” Dwight interrupted, impulsively, and then lapsed into silence, an awkward flush rising to his brow. “Yes, I mean Helen Warren, old man. As I say, I had never thought of a woman that way in my life. We were thrown together once at a house-party at Hilburn's farm--well, I simply went daft. She never refused to walk with me when I asked her, and seemed specially interested in my profession. I didn't know it at the time, but I have since discovered that she has that sweet way with every man, rich or poor, married or single. Well, to make a long story short, I proposed to her. The whole thing is stamped on my brain as with a branding-iron. We had taken a long walk that morning and were seated under a big beech-tree near a spring. She kept asking about my profession, her face beaming, and it all went to my head. I knew that I was the ugliest man in the State, that I had no style about me, and knew nothing about being nice to women of her sort; but her interest in everything pertaining to the law made me think, you know, that she admired that kind of thing. I went wild. As I told her how I felt I actually cried. Think of it--I was silly enough to blubber like a baby! I can't describe what happened. She was shocked and pained beyond description. She had never dreamed that I felt that way. I ended by asking her to try to forget it all, and we had a long, awful walk to the house.” “That _was_ tough,” Carson Dwight said, a queer expression on his face. “Well, I've told it to you for a special reason,” Garner said, with a big, trembling sigh. “Carson, I am a close observer, and I afterwards made up my mind that I knew why she had led me on to talk so much about the law and my work in particular.” “Oh, you found that out!” Carson said, almost absently. “Yes, my boy, it was about the time you and I were thinking of going in together. It was all on your account.”