"It was bought at Trimmer and Company's, Grand Street side, Bobby," she informed him, and with this Parthian shot she went back through the up-stairs hall, laughing. "Ouch!" said Bobby. "That was snowballing a cripple," and he was really most woebegone about it. "Never mind, Bobby, you have still plenty of chance to win," comforted Agnes, who, though laughing, had sympathetic inkling of that sore spot which had been touched. He seemed so forlorn, in spite of his big, good-natured self, that she moved closer to him and unconsciously put her hand upon his arm. It was too much for him in view of the way she looked, and, suddenly emboldened, he did a thing the mere thought of which, under premeditation, would have scared him into a frapped perspiration. He placed his hands upon her shoulders, and, drawing her toward him, bent swiftly down to kiss her. For a fleeting instant she drew back, and then Bobby had the surprise of his life, for her warm lips met his quite willingly, and with a frank pressure almost equal to his own. She sprang back from him at once with sparkling eyes, but he had no mind to follow up his advantage, for he was dazed. It had left him breathless, amazed, incredulous. He stood for a full minute, his face gone white with the overwhelming wonder of this thing that had happened to him, and then the blunt directness which was part of his inheritance from his father returned to him. "Well, anyhow, we're to be engaged at last," he said. "No," she rebuked him, with a sudden flash of mischief; "that was perfectly wicked, and you mustn't do it again." "But I will," he said, advancing with heightened color. "You mustn't," she said firmly, and although she did not recede farther from him he stopped. "You mustn't make it hard for us, Bobby," she warned him. "I'm under promise, too; and that's all I can tell you now." "The governor again," groaned Bobby. "I suppose that I'm not to talk to you about marrying, nor you to listen, until I have proved my right and ability to take care of you and your fortune and mine. Is that it?" She smiled inscrutably. "What brings you at this unearthly hour?" she asked by way of evasion. "Some business pretext, I'll be bound." "Of course it is," he assured her. "This morning you are strictly in the role of my trustee. I want you to look at some property." "But I have an appointment with my dressmaker." "The dressmaker must wait." "What a warning!" she laughed. "If you would order a mere--a mere acquaintance around so peremptorily, what would you do if you were married?" "I'd be the boss," announced Bobby with calm confidence. "Indeed?" she mocked, and started into the library. "You'd ask permission first, wouldn't you?" "Where are you going?" he queried in return, and grinned. "To telephone my dressmaker," she admitted, smiling, and realizing, too, that it was not all banter. "I told you to, remember," asserted Bobby, with a strange new sense of masterfulness which would not down.