Now she was ready to try out all these instructions upon Frank. The scene was set and lighted, the curtain rose—but somehow there was a hitch in the performance. Frank was moody again. He sat staring before him, frowning somberly; and she looked at him in a confusion of anxieties. He did not love her after all—she had simply seized upon him and compelled his attention, and now he was longing to extricate himself! Even if this were not true, it would soon come to that, for she could think of nothing interesting to say, and he would be bored. She racked her wits. What could she talk about to a man who knew none of her “set,” who never went to balls or dinners, who could not conceivably care about polite gossip? Why didn’t _he_ say something—the silent man! What manners to take into company! “I must make him look at me,” she resolved. So without saying a word, she began taking a rose from her corsage and adjusting it in her hair. The motion distracted him, and she saw that he was watching. She had him! “Is that in right?” she asked. Of course a _la France_ rose in perfectly arranged hair is always “in right,” and Sylvia knew it. Her little device failed abjectly, for Frank answered simply “Yes,” and began staring into space again. She tried once more, contenting herself with the barest necessities of conversation. “Did you shoot those quail yourself?” Then he turned. “Miss Sylvia, I have something I must say to you. I’ve had time to think things over.” He paused. Ah, now it was coming! He had had time to think things over—and he called her “_Miss_ Sylvia!” Something cried out in her to make haste and release him before he asked it. But she could not speak—she was as if pinned by a lance. He went on. “Miss Sylvia, I had made up my mind that love was not for me. I knew that to women of my own class I was a man with a tainted name—a convict’s son; and I would rather die than marry beneath me. So I shut up my heart, and when I met a woman, I turned and went away—as I tried to do with you. But you would not have it, and I could not resist you. I’ve been amazed at the intensity of my own feelings; it’s something I could not have dreamed of—and unless I’m mistaken, it’s been the same with you.” It was a bold man who could use words such as those to Sylvia. To what merciless teasing he laid himself open! But she only drew a deep sigh of relief. He still loved her! “I forced myself to stay away,” he continued, without waiting for her to answer. “I said, ‘I must not go near her again. I must run away somewhere and get over it.’ And then again I said, ‘I can make her happy—I will marry her.’ I said that, but I’m not going to do it.” He paused. Oh, what a voice he had! Sylvia felt the blood ebbing and flowing in her cheeks, pounding in her ears. She could not hear his words very well—but he loved her!