“Oh, all _that_ crowd!” He jerked his head backward, in the direction of the party following. “And you insist on classing me?” she persisted. “You know,” he replied obstinately, “as far as I’m concerned, you’re in a class by yourself. I’ve told you all about that before.” As they began the descent his hands tightened on the reins. She looked seaward over the low live-oaks. “You can’t for a moment suppose,” he went on, “that I _class_ you with them. You know their sort. You know how to meet them; but I believe at bottom you’re more like me.” “That may be, too,” she said gently; “but—” “Do you know, that’s the way you always answer me!” he struck in. “You won’t put a definite period to a sentence.” “Because you won’t let me come to the end of it,” she said quickly. She wanted to avert the last appeal. She wished to have all clear between them, but instinctively she dreaded the finality. “The difficulty is that I’m not enough like you; and we two are mature; we won’t change; we can’t adjust ourselves as younger people can.” “I ought to know by this time how much or how little alike we are,” he determined. “Is it such a long time?” she doubted. “Six months.” “Yes, but what did the months in New York amount to? A porridge of things and people! Did we have time to breathe? We simply rushed from place to place, throwing at each other the last opinion on the latest thing.” “I knew what I wanted then,” he retorted. “But you didn’t know _me_.” “Don’t you think I know the sort you are?” he demanded. “Not quite.” And, as he repudiated her words with his large head-shake, she added, “At least, if you _will_ take the consequences of cornering me, I’m not at all sure I know what _you_ are like.” He seemed to consider this more natural. “I’ll tell you all you want to know in that quarter, and tell you straight.” He pinned her with his direct look. She tried to retrieve his misconception of her meaning. “Oh,” she said, “you can’t. You would have to show me.” They whirled under the cypresses at the entrance to the golf-links. The club-house, so low, and so widely roofed with tiles that it appeared to crouch under a red umbrella, gave them just the glimmer of the upper row of its windows over the hill-crest. “And how long a time will it take to show you?” said Holden. It came to her how unescapable he was; what significance had his direct mind read into her replies? She was grave, with a certain distress and indecision in her face. “I can’t tell. I mean you must not ask me to—you must not expect—I cannot—” But he would not have it. “Oh, well, if time’s what you want!” “Do you go at your deals as hard as this?” she smiled. “Worse than this,” he said earnestly. “There’s no consideration there—much worse.” “Worse!” cried Cissy Fitz Hugh, catching the word as she and Longacre, foremost of the riders, came abreast the runabout.