_Ransom_: “Yes. But she isn’t pensive. She’s awfully deep. It makes me shudder to think how deep that girl is. And when I think of my courage in daring to be in love with her—a stupid, straightforward idiot like me—I begin to respect myself in spite of being such an ass. Well, I’m off. If I stay any longer I shall never go.” He closes the door after him, and _Miss Reed_ instantly springs to her feet. _Miss Reed_: “Now he’ll have to go down to the parlor and send up his name, and that just gives me time to do the necessary prinking. You stay here and receive him, Nettie.” _Miss Spaulding_: “Never! After what’s happened I can never look him in the face again. Oh, how low, and mean, and guilty I feel!” _Miss Reed_, with surprise: “Why, how droll! Now _I_ don’t feel the least so.” _Miss Spaulding_: “Oh, it’s very different with _you_. _You’re_ in love with him.” _Miss Reed_: “For shame, Nettie! I’m _not_ in love with him.” _Miss Spaulding_: “And you can explain and justify it. But I never can justify it to myself, much less to him. Let me go, Ethel! I shall tell Mrs. McKnight that we must change this room instantly. And just after I’d got it so nearly in order! Go down and receive him in the parlor, Ethel. I _can’t_ see him.” _Miss Reed_: “Receive him in the parlor! Why, Nettie, dear, you’re crazy! I’m going to _accept_ him: and how can I accept him—with all the consequences—in a public parlor? No, indeed! If you won’t meet him here for a moment, just to oblige me, you can go into the other room. Or, no—you’d be listening to every word through the key-hole, you’re so demoralized!” _Miss Spaulding_: “Yes, yes, I deserve your contempt, Ethel.” _Miss Reed_, laughing: “You will have to go out for a walk, you poor thing; and I’m not going to have you coming back in five or ten minutes. You have got to stay out a good hour.” _Miss Spaulding_, running to get her things from the next room: “Oh, I’ll stay out till midnight!” _Miss Reed_, responding to a tap at the door: “Ye-e-s! Come in!—You’re caught, Nettie.” _A maid-servant_, appearing with a card: “This gentleman is asking for you in the parlor, Miss Reed.” _Miss Reed_: “Oh! Ask him to come up here, please.—Nettie! Nettie!” She calls to her friend in the next room. “He’s coming right up, and if you don’t run you’re trapped.” _Miss Spaulding_, re-appearing, cloaked and bonneted: “I don’t blame _you_, Ethel, comparatively speaking. You can say that everything is fair in love. He will like it, and laugh at it in you, because he’ll like everything you’ve done. Besides, you’ve no principles, and I _have_.” _Miss Reed_: “Oh, I’ve lots of principles, Nettie, but I’ve no practice!” _Miss Spaulding_: “No matter. There’s no excuse for me. I listened simply because I was a woman, and couldn’t help it; and, oh, what will he think of me?” _Miss Reed_: “I won’t give you away; if you really feel so badly”—