She snatched them away, lifting her lovely face. "Oh, Austin!" she cried, "how can you be so calm and cold? I think sometimes you're made of stone! If you must go, don't say good-night like that--act as if you were made of flesh and blood!" "I'm acting in the only sane way for both of us. If you don't like it, I had better not come at all." And he went home without giving her even the caress he had originally intended, and slept soundly and well all night; but Sylvia tossed about for hours, and finally, at dawn, cried herself to sleep. The first serious disagreement, however, came just before Katherine's graduation. Austin, who loved to dance, was looking forward to his clever sister's "ball" with a great deal of pride and pleasure, and was genuinely amazed when Sylvia objected violently to his going, saying that as she could not dance, and as all the rest of the family would be there, Katherine did not need him, and that he had much better stay at home with her. "But, Sylvia," protested Austin, "I _want_ to go. I'm awfully proud of Katherine, and I wouldn't miss it for anything. Why don't you come, too? I don't see any reason why you shouldn't." "Of course you don't. You weren't brought up among people who know what's proper in such matters." "I know it, Sylvia. But if that's going to trouble you, you should have thought of it sooner. My knowledge of etiquette is very slight, I admit, but my common-sense tells me that announcing one's engagement should be equivalent to stopping all former observances of mourning." "I didn't want to announce it. It was you that insisted upon that, too." "Well, you know why," said Austin with some meaning. "All right, then," burst out Sylvia angrily, "go to your old ball. You seem to think you are an authority on everything. I'm sure I don't want to go, anyway, and dance with a lot of awkward farmers who smell of the cow-stable. I shouldn't think you would care about it either, now that you've had a chance to see things properly done." "I care a good deal about my sister, Sylvia, and about my friends here, too. There are no better people on the face of the earth--I've heard you say so, yourself! It's only a chance that I'm a little less awkward than some of the others." The result of this conversation was that Austin did not go near Sylvia for several days. He was deeply hurt, but that was not all. He began to wonder, even more than he ever had before, whether his comparative poverty, his lack of education, his farmer family and traditions and friends, were not very real barriers between himself and a girl like Sylvia. What was more, he questioned whether a strong, passionate, determined man, who felt that he knew his own best course and proposed to take it, could ever make such a delicate, self-willed little creature happy, even if there were no other obstacles in their path than those of warring disposition.