"Patty! Don't you ever use the word _soul_ in the silly way they do! You have a soul, of course,--an immortal soul. But they don't mean that. By soul, they mean a puffball of hifalutin ideas, of nonsense about the occult and psychic, and all that balderdash. Oh, Patty, my little girl, _don't_ let those idiot people carry away your common sense and your plain everyday sanity! Don't, I beg of you!" "Look here, Phil," and Patty stared at him, thoughtfully; "I'm to give you an answer to a certain question in about a fortnight, I believe." "You are, my Blessed Darling! To be exact, on the fifteenth of December, this present month, you are to admit,--blushingly, if you like, but unequivocally,--that I'm the one man in the world for you." "Don't be too sure. Do you suppose I _can_ love a man who differs so in opinion on this matter of--of psychology----" "Yes, you blessed goose! You sure can! For, you see, this poppycock,--I beg your pardon,--this poppychology is but a flash in the pan, a rift in the lute, a fly in the ointment. Ahem, I'm getting poetical now! Well, in a short space of period, you will have forgotten all this rubbish,--er,--soul-rubbish, you know,--and you'll be thinking only of how glad you are that you love me and I love you,--just as Mona and Roger are, in these blissful days before their marriage. Oh, Patty, you are going to marry me, aren't you, dear? I can't stand it, if you say no." Patty looked at him, and a troubled expression filled her blue eyes. "I don't know, Philip. Honestly, I don't know. But it seems to me if I am going to love you such a lot two weeks from now, I ought to care more than I do now." "Oh, that's all right, darling. It'll come all at once. Why, some day, you'll suddenly discover you love me with every bit and corner of your dear little blessed heart, and you'll wonder that you only just realised it." "I don't know, Philip. I hope it _will_ be like that--but I don't know." "Don't worry about it, dear, it will be all right," and Van Reypen smiled into the anxious eyes upraised to his. CHAPTER VI A SOCIETY CIRCUS "Of course I could do it," Patty agreed, "and I will, if you say so, Elise. I don't care a lot about it, but if everybody is going in for the game, I am, too." "Yes, do, Patty; it's just in your line, and you can do it a whole lot better than that girl did last year,--you know whom I mean, Ethel." "Yes, Ray Rose----" "Ray Rose," said Patty, "what a pretty name!" "Pretty girl, too," said Ethel Merritt, who was calling at Pine Laurel. "Also, she isn't going to like it any too well to have Miss Fairfield take her part." "Oh, is it her part?" asked Patty; "then I won't take it." "Yes, you will. It's all right. Nobody wants her and everybody wants you." The subject under discussion was a "Society Circus" to be performed by the young people of Lakewood, and of great interest to all concerned.