I wanted to say something smart, there, and I have thought of a dozen bright remarks since; but at the time I couldn't think of a blessed thing that came within a mile of being either witty or epigrammatic. Love-making was all new to me, and I saw right then that I wasn't going to shine. I finally did remark that I should like it better if her father would be less belligerent and more peaceful as a neighbor. "You told me, last summer, that you enjoyed keeping up the feud," she reminded, smiling whimsically down at me. She made a wrong play there; she let me see that she did remember some things that I said. It boosted my courage a notch. "But that was last summer," I countered. "One can change one's view-point a lot in twelve months. Anyway, you knew all along that I didn't mean a word of it." "Indeed!" It was evident that she didn't quite like having me take that tone. "Yes, 'indeed'!" I repeated, feeling a rebellion against circumstances and at convention growing stronger within me. Why couldn't I put her on my horse and carry her off and keep her always? I wondered crazily. That was what I wanted to do. "Do you ever mean what you say, I wonder?" she mused, biting her pencil-point like a schoolgirl when she can't remember how many times three goes into twenty-seven. "Sometimes. Sometimes I mean more." I set my teeth, closed my eyes--mentally--and plunged, insanely, not knowing whether I should come to the surface alive or knock my head on a rock and stay down. "For instance, when I say that some day I shall carry you off and find a preacher to marry us, and that we shall live happily ever after, whether you want to or not, because I shall _make_ you, I mean every word of it--and a lot more." That was going some, I fancy! I was so scared at myself I didn't dare breathe. I kept my eyes fixed desperately on the mouth of the pass, all golden-green in the sunshine; and I remember that my teeth were so tight together that they ached afterward. The point of her pencil came off with a snap. I heard it, but I was afraid to look. "Do you? How very odd!" Her voice sounded queer, as if it had been squeezed dry of every sort of emotion. "And--Edith?" I looked at her then, fast enough. "Edith?" I stared at her stupidly. "What the--what's Edith got to do with it?" "Possibly nothing"--in the same squeezed tone. "Men are so--er--irresponsible; and you say you don't always mean--Still, when a man writes pages and _pages_ to a girl every week for nearly a year, one naturally supposes--" "Oh, look here!" I was getting desperate enough to be a bit rough with her. "Edith doesn't care a rap about me, and you know it. And she knows I don't care, and--and if anybody had anything to say, it would be your Mr. Terence Weaver." "_My_ Mr. Terence Weaver?" She was looking down at me sidewise, in a perfectly maddening way. "You are really very--er--funny, Mr. Carleton." "Well," I rapped out between my teeth, "I don't _feel_ funny. I feel--"