No, my emotion was not one of impatience. Indeed, I should have liked to prolong the process. It was one which only a man with his bachelor days fresh in mind can understand. It was the subtle thrill of being led helpless by a woman who is intent on providing him creature comforts which he could not arrange for himself, of seeing her purchase for him the most intimate of domestic necessities, and inevitably filling his mind with thoughts of her in his establishment. If I were a woman and wanted to win a man, I should make him take me shopping when he needed new towels! We finished in the dry-goods store at last, and I said, "I am sorry." "Why?" asked the girl. "Because," I answered, "with every purchase you make for me, you lay a new brick in the structure of our friendship--or a new towel!" She turned her face quickly away, and made no reply. Our next quest was for a sundial plate, but it was a vain search, for not a store in town carried such an article. As we came out of the last shop, she sighed. "Well, I can't spend any more of your money!" she said. "But I've really saved it for you. Goodness knows how much you'd have spent by yourself. Why, you wanted the most expensive kind of _everything_!" "Of course," said I; "nothing is too good for Twin Fires." "Well, it's lucky I was along, then." "Lucky isn't just the word," said I. "I feel already as if Twin Fires was as much yours as mine." Again she made no reply, except to ask when the train went back. But the train had long since gone back. It was nearly two o'clock, and we realized that we were hungry. So we gayly hunted out the hotel, and here I took command. "I'm going to order this lunch," I declared, "and the expense go hang. We'll have a regular spree, cocktails and all." The hotel was really a good one, and the presence of several motor parties gave the café almost a metropolitan appearance. The change from Mrs. Bert's simple service to this was abrupt, and we were in the highest spirits. The cocktails came, and we clinked glasses. "To Twin Fires!" said the girl. "To the fairy godmother of Twin Fires!" said I. Our eyes met as our glasses touched, and something electric passed between us. Then we drank. "That is my first cocktail," she laughed, as she set her glass down. "Heavens!" I exclaimed, "and we in a public place!" It was my first since I came to Bentford, and we both enjoyed the luxury of dissipation, and laughed brazenly at our enjoyment. Then the lunch came, and we enjoyed that, and then we caught a train, and half an hour later were walking toward the farm. We passed the golf links on the way, at the end of the beautiful, elm-hung main street of Bentford, and saw players striding over the green turf along the winding river. "Quick, drag me past!" I cried. "Oh, Lord, lead us not into temptation!" "Haven't you joined yet?" she asked.