_Miss Spaulding_: “’Sh! Be quiet, do! You’ll frighten them away!” _Grinnidge_: “And then what?” _Ransom_: “What then? I don’t know what then. But it appears to me that, as a gentleman, I’ve got nothing to do with the result. All that I’ve got to do is to submit to my fate, whatever it is.” _Miss Reed_, breathlessly: “What princely courage! What delicate magnanimity! Oh, he needn’t have the _least_ fear! If I could only tell him that!” _Grinnidge_, after an interval of meditative smoking: “Yes, I guess that’s the best thing you can do. It will strike her fancy, if she’s an imaginative girl, and she’ll think you a fine fellow.” _Miss Reed_: “Oh, the horrid thing!” _Grinnidge_: “If you humble yourself to a woman at all, do it thoroughly. If you go halfway down she’ll be tempted to push you the rest of the way. If you flatten out at her feet to begin with, ten to one but she will pick you up.” _Ransom_: “Yes, that was my idea.” _Miss Reed_: “Oh, was it, indeed! Well!” _Ransom_: “But I’ve nothing to do with her picking me up or pushing me down. All that I’ve got to do is to go and surrender myself.” _Grinnidge_: “Yes. Well; I guess you can’t go too soon. I like your company; but I advise you as a friend not to lose time. Where does she live?” _Ransom_: “That’s the remarkable part of it: she lives in this house.” _Miss Reed_ and _Miss Spaulding_, in subdued chorus: “Oh!” _Grinnidge_, taking his pipe out of his mouth in astonishment: “No!” _Ransom_: “I just came in here to give my good resolutions a rest while I was screwing my courage up to ask for her.” _Miss Reed_: “Don’t you think he’s _very_ humorous? Give his good resolutions a rest! That’s the way he _always_ talks.” _Miss Spaulding_: “’Sh!” _Grinnidge_: “You said you came for my advice.” _Ransom_: “So I did. But I didn’t promise to act upon it. Well!” He goes toward the door. _Grinnidge_, without troubling himself to rise: “Well, good luck to you!” _Miss Reed_: “How droll they are with each other! Don’t you _like_ to hear them talk? Oh, I could listen all day.” _Grinnidge_, calling after _Ransom_: “You haven’t told me your duck’s name.” _Miss Reed_: “Is _that_ what they call us? Duck! Do you think it’s very respectful, Nettie? I don’t believe I like it. Or, yes, why not? It’s no harm—if I _am_ his duck!” _Ransom_, coming back: “Well, I don’t propose to go shouting it round. Her name is Miss Reed—Ethel Reed.” _Miss Reed_: “How _can_ he?” _Grinnidge_: “Slender, willowy party, with a lot of blond hair that looks as if it might be indigenous? Rather pensive-looking?” _Miss Reed_: “Indigenous! I should hope so!”