"Brother much! I'm not the least little bit like a brother. Bill's got sisters and I don't believe he is bothering about leaving them one-tenth as much as he is leaving Tillie Wingo. Why, honey, ever since I can remember I have been meaning to get you to marry me when we both grew up. Of course, I can't ask you to marry me now as I haven't a piece of prospect and will have to enlist in the ranks and work up, but I mean to work up fast and be so steady that I'll be a lieutenant before Carranza and Villa can settle their difficulty. Won't you be engaged to me so I'll have something to work for until I can see you again?" "Engaged to you! Why, Lewis, I--I--how can I be when it is so sudden? You never told me before that you cared for me the least little bit." "Told you before! Ye Gods and little fishes! I've been telling you for pretty near eighteen years." "Well, I never heard you!" "Why don't you say you don't give a hang for me and let me go?" "But, Lewis, I give a whole lot of hangs for you and I don't want you to go." "Oh, I know the kind of hangs you give: just this brother and sister business," and the young man dropped the girl's hands. Douglas felt like crying, but Lewis was so absurd she had to laugh. What time had she to think about getting engaged? She felt as though the whole world rested on her young shoulders. Here was her mother wanting her to make a debut, and Helen wanting to spend on a silly trip the pitiful little money they had begun to save from their boarding camp. And now Lewis Somerville and Bill Tinsley, the brawn and sinew of their undertaking, suddenly deciding that they must enlist and hike out for the Mexican border! "We must go back to the pavilion," she said wearily. Her voice sounded very tired and she stumbled a little as she turned to go down the path. "Now, Douglas, I have distressed you," and Lewis was all thoughtfulness and consideration. "I didn't mean to, honey--I just want you to say you love me the way I love you." "And I can't say it, because I never thought of your caring for me in any different way. You are the best friend I have in the world." "Well, that is something and I am going to keep on being it. Maybe when I come back from Mexico you will think differently. You will write to me, won't you?" "Why, of course I will, Lewis! Haven't I always written to you?" "Douglas, don't you think you could love me a little?" "But, Lewis, I do love you a whole lot!" "But I mean be engaged to me?" "Lewis Somerville, would you want me to be engaged to you when you know perfectly well that I have never thought of you except as the very best friend I've got in the world, and if not as a brother, at least as a cousin who has been almost like a brother? If I did engage myself to you, you wouldn't have the least bit of respect for me and you know you wouldn't; would you?"