"I know you don't want me to say these things. I know every time you head me off. But if you'll just let me get it off my chest this once, then I promise to keep the cork in if it busts the bottle!" Eleanor laughed in spite of herself. "All right," she said; "I'll listen." "Well," said Quin, "it's this way. I know you don't care a tinker's damn for me in the way I care for you. But you can't deny that you do like me some. You wouldn't talk to me like you do and let me do things for you if you didn't. What I want you to promise is that whenever you need a friend--a _best_ friend, mind you--you will come straight to me." He looked worth coming to as he stood there, big and strong and earnest; and Eleanor, being young and a woman, promptly forgot her good resolutions not to encourage him, and rose impulsively and held out her hand. "I do promise, Quin," she said, "and I thank you with all my heart." Then a curious and unexpected thing happened to her. As she stood there on the lonely country road with her hand in his, a curious, deep, still feeling crept over her, a queer sensation of complete satisfaction that she never remembered to have felt before. For a long moment she stood there, her cheek almost touching that outrageous plaid tie that had so recently excited her derision. Then she snatched her hand away. "Look out!" she warned. "They are coming." Two minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Ranny, emerging from the thicket with their hands full of wild flowers, found Eleanor seated in the car in a bored attitude, while Quin solicitously examined a rear tire. "It's all settled!" Mr. Ranny cried exultingly. "The farm is ours!" CHAPTER 17 Although Quin had taken himself and his career seriously before Eleanor's home-coming, it was nothing in comparison to the fever of energy that possessed him after her departure. He was determined to forge ahead in business, get an education, and become versed in the gentler branches of social life at the earliest possible moment. His chief trouble was that the days contained only twenty-four hours. Even his dreams were a jumble of plows and personal pronouns, of mathematical problems and social proprieties. At the factory he flung himself into the affairs of the firm with a zeal that at times bordered on officiousness. But Mr. Bangs was beginning to find him useful, and, while he continued to snub him and correct him, he also came to depend upon him, especially in an emergency. Quin, on his part, was for the first time turning a critical eye on his own achievements in relation to those of bigger and abler men, and the result was chastening.