“This girl is really pathetically taken with me,” he thought. He laid before her a description of a day in Epping Forest, he produced an excerpt from his childhood, he told her of a tree with enlarged and tangled roots in which his lead soldiers used to climb. Also he mentioned a young bat which he and Jimmy had found. They made a hole for it in the tree. It stayed two days. “Jimmy was killed at Loos,” he said. “Well, isn’t that too bad....” said Miss Weber. She paused for a decent moment before saying, “You’re a nice beau, aren’t you?” “I don’t suppose you really think so,” said Edward, smiling placidly. “You must have had many more amusing beaux than me.” “Oh, my no,” replied Miss Weber acidly. She threw her head back on the cushions so that her round neck and line figure were seen to advantage. Edward redeemed himself a little by taking her hand and feeling upward along her arm as if in curiosity. “Rather a shame,” thought Edward happily, “to raise her hopes like this.” “You know, I have a true love already,” he said aloud. “I’ll tell the world you have,” replied Miss Weber. “Haf-a-dozen, more like. In England I guess.” “In China.” “Is that right? Well, China’s a long ways off,” she said and placed her head a little doubtfully on his shoulder. “That’s nice,” said Edward, trying secretly to pretend that the head was Emily’s. It was blasphemy, for Miss Weber’s crimped hair looked sticky under its dusty net. “Poor soul, poor defenceless little woman....” he thought a little wearily. He had never before had such advances from a virtuous young woman, but he was already thinking of himself as a heartbreaker. He was proud but he ached for Emily. “One’s life with such people is hideous,” he thought suddenly. “People like me have to pretend all the time with them. Pretend to be amused ... to be grateful ... to be sprightly ... to be in love. If one stopped pretending one would shout, ‘Oh, how hideous my life is when I am with you.’ Emily is easy.” “I guess you haven’t gotten on to my first name,” murmured Miss Weber. “Yes I have. It’s Mame,” he replied with distaste. Only once during his visit was Edward’s dramatic sense aroused, and that was when he seemed to hear Mom say to a silent and ghostlike neighbor who had dropped in, “Merry, merry, merry were they, and danced with their hair in a tremble.” After studying the picture thus presented to his mental retina, Edward realised that part of what she had really said was, “It’s worry, worry, worry all day about dancing ...” That evening, when the energies of a cheap Victrola had been directed to the delivery of a song which one could tell was a comic song about Prohibition because it was sung out of tune and with a great deal of hiccoughing, Miss Weber asked her brother for the loan of his bicycle. “What’d I loan Ed my wheel for?” asked the frank youth. “He’s not _my_ beau, is he?” “Why, Cliff, you know you haven’t used it yourself in months. You’re not going to act mean, are you?”