Then--I remember it was just after the clock struck seven--my telephone rang. And it was a man's voice--which is exciting in itself, no man ever calling me up without it's the grocery-man to try to get rid of some of his fruit that's going to spoil, or the flour and feed man to say he can't send up the corn-meal till to-morrow, after all. And this Voice wasn't like either one of them. He asked if this was my number, brisk and strong and deep and sure, and as if he was used to everything there is. "Is Miss Marjorie Mayhew there?" says he. "Miss _Marjorie_ Mayhew," says I, thoughtful. "Why, I dunno's I ever heard her front name." "Whose front name?" says he. "Why," says I, "Miss Mayhew's. That's who we're talking about, ain't it?" "Oh," says he, "then there _is_ a Miss Mayhew staying there?" "No, sir," says I short, "there ain't. She's _the_ Miss Mayhew--the one I mean--and anybody that's ever seen her would tell you the same thing." He was still at that, just for a second. And when he spoke again, his voice had somehow got a little different--I couldn't tell how. "I see," says he, "that you and I understand each other perfectly. May I speak to the Miss Mayhew?" "Why, sure," says I hearty. "Sure you can." So I went in the kitchen and found her where she was stirring lemon-juice in my big stone crock. And when I told her, first she turned red-rose red, and then she turned white-rose white. "Me?" she says. "Who can want me? Who knows I'm here?" "You go on and answer the 'phone, child," I says to her. "Him and me, we understand each other perfectly." So she went. I couldn't help hearing what she said. "Yes." "Yes." "You are?" "It doesn't matter in the least." "If you wish." "Two automobiles?" "Very well. Any time." "Oh, not at all, I assure you." --all in a cool, don't-care little voice that I never in this wide world would have recognized as Miss Mayhew's voice. Then she hung up. And I stepped out of the cloak-closet. I took hold of her two shoulders and looked in her eyes. And I saw she was palpitating and trembling and breathless and pink. "Marjorie Mayhew," I says, "I never knew that was your name, till just now when that Nice Voice asked for you. But stranger though you are to me--or more so--I want to say something to you: _If_ you ever love--I don't say That Nice Voice, but Any Nice Voice, don't you never, never speak cold to it like you just done. No matter what--" She looked at me, kind of sweet and kind of still, and long and deep. And I saw that we both knew what we both knew. "I know," she says. "Folks are so foolish--oh, so foolish! I know it now. And yet--" "And yet you young folks hurt love for pride all the time," I says. "And love is gold, and pride is clay. And some of you never find it out till too late."