“But you what?” demanded Staniford sharply again. There had been less tension of voice in his joking about Miss Hibbard. “Staniford,” said his friend, “I don't know whether you noticed her, at dinner, when she looked across to our own side?” “What did she do?” “Did you notice that she--well, that she blushed a little?” Staniford waited a while before he answered, after a gulp, “Yes, I noticed that.” “Well, I don't know how to put it exactly, but I'm afraid that I have unwittingly wronged this young girl.” “Wronged her? What the devil _do_ you mean, Dunham?” cried Staniford, with bitter impatience. “I'm afraid--I'm afraid--Why, it's simply this: that in trying to amuse her, and make the time pass agreeably, and relieve her mind, and all that, don't you know, I've given her the impression that I'm--well--interested in her, and that she may have allowed herself--insensibly, you know--to look upon me in that light, and that she may have begun to think--that she may have become--” “Interested in you?” interrupted Staniford rudely. “Well--ah--well, that is--ah--well--yes!” cried Dunham, bracing himself to sustain a shout of ridicule. But Staniford did not laugh, and Dunham had courage to go on. “Of course, it sounds rather conceited to say so, but the circumstances are so peculiar that I think we ought to recognize even any possibilities of that sort.” “Oh, yes,” said Staniford, gravely. “Most women, I believe, are so innocent as to think a man in love when he behaves like a lover. And this one,” he added ruefully, “seems more than commonly ignorant of our ways,--of our infernal shilly-shallying, purposeless no-mindedness. She couldn't imagine a man--a gentleman--devoting himself to her by the hour, and trying by every art to show his interest and pleasure in her society, without imagining that he wished her to like him,--love him; there's no half-way about it. She couldn't suppose him the shallow, dawdling, soulless, senseless ape he really was.” Staniford was quite in a heat by this time, and Dunham listened in open astonishment. “You are hard upon me,” he said. “Of course, I have been to blame; I know that, I acknowledge it. But my motive, as you know well enough, was never to amuse myself with her, but to contribute in any way I could to her enjoyment and happiness. I--” “_You_!” cried Staniford. “What are you talking about?” “What are _you_ talking about?” demanded Dunham, in his turn. Staniford recollected himself. “I was speaking of abstract flirtation. I was firing into the air.” “In my case, I don't choose to call it flirtation,” returned Dunham. “My purpose, I am bound to say, was thoroughly unselfish and kindly.” “My dear fellow,” said Staniford, with a bitter smile, “there can be no unselfishness and no kindliness between us and young girls, unless we mean business,--love-making. You may be sure that they feel it so, if they don't understand it so.”