"You could help me to get something to do, maybe?" she asked quickly. "I've been thinking maybe you could. That's one reason I wanted to talk to you." "Possibly. I'd do almost anything for you, Ann, especially now I know you're not happy down there." Her pleasure and relief were evident; she flushed brightly. "You're very nice to me Mr. Garvin." "We're really friends, then, Ann? You don't share the family grudge?" "Indeed I don't! I can't see why they are so bitter." "It's just an hereditary quarrel, that's all, and you are the first Penniman and I the first Westmore who has buried it.... Will you really bury it; dear--and show me that you have?" "I'm showing that I have," she said earnestly. "Shan't we kiss each other to prove that the ugly thing is gone from between us?" he asked gravely. Ann's flush deepened, but not because of any particular self-consciousness; she neither dropped her eyes nor smiled. Ann had gone down in the depths that day and, for the time being, had parted with coquetry. The longing for affection and interest and consideration such as Garvin was offering her was her immediate need. She was desperate for want of it. And yet she hesitated. She felt certain now that Garvin was very fond of her, and to Ann's way of thinking love led to marriage. She was quite as certain that she liked him very much. She hesitated because she was a Penniman and he a Westmore; there was a class distinction between them that had held for generations. Garvin saw her hesitation and obeyed a subtle instinct when he kept his hands from her and chose the words that would appeal to her, and the more irresistibly because of genuine feeling. "I'm not any more happy than you are, Ann--I'm wretched. My people are kind to me, too, just that, and they pity me endlessly. If ever there was a misfit, it is I. I'm sick to death of it all, and lonely enough to take the short way out.... Be nice to me, dear." She lifted her lips to him, and his arms took her and held her, and she clung to him with a tensity of affection. He kissed her long and passionately, but with self-control enough to realize the quality of what he received, its affection and gratitude and lack of passion. And when her lips parted from his and he buried his face on her shoulder shaken by the first effort for restraint he had ever cared to make, her hand stroked his hair, gently. "I didn't know you were unhappy, too," she said softly. When he raised his head he was pale. "You're a child yet," he said. "You'll wake up one of these days--then you'll love me as I love you." "I like you a great deal," Ann answered, with conviction. He laughed shortly. "Yes, we're good friends--that's it, isn't it, Ann?" The note of urgency and dissatisfaction made her uncomfortable. "You asked me to be friends," she said.