"That is a very ugly expression, Mr. Lavendar, and I shall choose not to believe it, until you give me your own version of the story." "In one way I can give you no other; except that I was just fool enough to drift into an engagement with a woman whom I did not really love, and just not enough of a fool to make both of us miserable for life when I, all too late, found out my mistake." There passed before him at that moment other foolish blithe little loves, like faded flowers with the sweetness gone out of them. They had been so innocent, so fragile, so free from blame; all but the last; and this last it was that threatened to rise like a shadow perhaps, and defeat his winning the only woman he could ever love. Robinette stared at the stretches of ooze, and then stole a look at Mark Lavendar. "The idea of calling that man a jilt," she thought. "Look at his eyes; look at his mouth; listen to his voice; there is truth in them all. Oh for a sight of the girl he jilted! How much it would explain! No, not altogether, because the careless making of his engagement would have to be accounted for, as well as the breaking of it. Unless he did it merely to oblige her--and men are such idiots sometimes,--then he must have fancied he was in love with her. Perhaps he is continually troubled with those fancies. Nonsense! you believe in him, and you know you do." Then aloud she said, sympathetically, "I'm afraid we are apt to make these little experimental journeys in youth, when the heart is full of _wanderlust_. We start out on them so lightly, then they lead nowhere, and the walking back alone is wearisome and depressing." "My return journey was depressing enough at first," said Lavendar, "because the particular She was unkinder to me than I deserved even; but better counsels have prevailed and I shall soon be able to meet the reproachful gaze of stout matrons and sour spinsters more easily than I have for a year past; you see the two families were friends and each family had a large and interested connection!" "If the opinion of a comparative stranger is of any use to you," said Robinette, standing on the rock and scraping her stockinged foot free of mud, "_I_ believe in you, personally! You don't seem a bit 'jilty' to me! I'd let you marry my sister to-morrow and no questions asked!" "I didn't know you had a sister," cried Lavendar. "I haven't; that's only a figure of speech; just a phrase to show my confidence." "And isn't it ungrateful to be obliged to say I can't marry your sister, after you have given me permission to ask her!" "Not only ungrateful but unreasonable," said Robinette saucily, turning her head to look up the river and discovering from her point of vantage a moving object around the curve that led her to make hazardous remarks, knowing rescue was not far away. "What have you against my sister, pray?"