“Well if she is so particular, how did she come to tell you first thing that she was in debt?” The Harvester explained. “Oh I see!” said the doctor. “Well you'll have to baby her along with the idea that she is earning money and pay her double until you get that off her mind, and while you are at it, put in your best licks, my boy; perk right up and court her like a house afire. Women like it. All of them do. They glory in feeling that a man is crazy about them.” “Well I'm insane enough over her,” said the Harvester, “but I'd hate like the nation for her to know it. Seems as if a woman couldn't respect such an addle-pate as I am lately.” “Don't you worry about that,” advised the doctor. “Just you make love to her. Go at it in the good old-fashioned way.” “But maybe the 'good old-fashioned way' isn't my way.” “What's the difference whose way it is, if it wins?” “But Kipling says: 'Each man makes love his own way!'” “I seem to have heard you mention that name be fore,” said the doctor. “Do you regard him as an authority?” “I do!” said the Harvester. “Especially when he advises me after my own heart and reason. Miss Jameson is not a silly girl. She's a woman, and twenty-four at least. I don't want her to care for a trick or a pretence. I do want her to love me. Not that I am worth her attention, but because she needs some strong man fearfully, and I am ready and more 'willing' than the original Barkis. But, like him, I have to let her know it in my way, and court her according to the promptings of my heart.” “You deceive yourself!” said the doctor flatly. “That's all bosh! Your tongue says it for the satisfaction of your ears, and it does sound well. You will court her according to your ideas of the conventions, as you understand them, and strictly in accordance with what you consider the respect due her. If you had followed the thing you call the 'promptings of your heart,' you would have picked her up by main force and brought her to my best ward, instead of merely suggesting it and giving up when she said no. If you had followed your heart, you would have choked the name and amount out of her and paid that devilish debt. You walk away in a case like that, and then have the nerve to come here and prate to me about following your heart. I'll wager my last dollar your heart is sore because you were not allowed to help her; but on the proposition that you followed its promptings I wouldn't stake a penny. That's all tommy-rot!” “It is,” agreed the Harvester. “Utter! But what can a man do?” “I don't know what you can do! I'd have paid that debt and brought her to the hospital.”