"Well," said the girl, "I have one--a jade Buddha, and with all the charms I flash before him nightly, he's never batted an eyelash. Explain that!" "Easily. He's green with envy, and frozen with admiration, and struck dumb by wonder." "Heavens! I suppose I ought to be thankful you didn't say he was petrified with fright!" Pat laughed. "Oh Nick," she continued, in a voice gone suddenly dreamy, "this _is_ marvelous, isn't it? I mean our enjoying ourselves so completely, and our being satisfied to be so alone. Why, we've never even danced together." "So we haven't. That's a subterfuge we haven't needed, isn't it?" "It is," replied the girl, dropping her glossy gleaming black head against his shoulder. "And besides, it's much more satisfactory to be held in your arms in private, instead of in the midst of a crowd, and sitting down, instead of standing up. But I should like to dance with you, Nick," she concluded. "We'll go dancing, then, whenever you like." "You're delightfully complaisant, Nick. But--you're puzzling." She glanced up at him. "You're so--so reluctant. Here we've been driving an hour, and you haven't tried to kiss me a single time, and yet I'm quite positive you care for me." "Lord, Pat!" he muttered. "You never need doubt that." "Then what is it? Are you so spiritual and ethereal, or is my attraction for you just sort of intellectual? Or--are you afraid?" As he made no reply, she continued, "Or are those poems you spout about my physical charms just--poetic license?" "They're not, and you know it!" he snapped. "You've a mirror, haven't you? And other fellows than I have taken you around, haven't they?" "Oh, I've been taken around! That's what perplexes me about you, Nick. I'd think you were actually afraid of kissing me if it weren't--" Her voice trailed into silence, and she stared speculatively ahead at the ribbon of road that rolled steadily into the headlights' glare. She broke the interval of wordlessness. "What is it, Nick?" she resumed almost pleadingly. "You've hinted at something now and then. Please--you don't have to hesitate to tell me; I'm modern enough to forgive things past, entanglements, affairs, disgraces, or anything like that. Don't you think I should know?" "You'd know," he said huskily, "if I could tell you." "Then there is something, Nick!" She pressed his arm against her. "Tell me, isn't there?" "I don't know." There was the suggestion of a groan in his voice. "You don't know! I can't understand." "I can't either. Please, Pat, let's not spoil tonight; if I could tell you, I would. Why, Pat, I love you--I'm terribly, deeply, solemnly in love with you." "And I with you, Nick." She gazed ahead, where the road rose over the arch of a narrow bridge. The speeding car lifted to the rise like a zooming plane.