She put her hand against her young breast, in astounded question: "_I?_" "I should think you'd have seen it. You, and--and everybody." "But Howard, it can't be--_me_?" she protested, faintly. "It's been you, always. When you accuse me of being in love with--with anybody else, and say everybody thought so, you just bowl me over!" His shocked astonishment left no doubt of his sincerity. "But Freddy," Laura began-- He broke in sharply: "Fred knows how tremendously I admire her. I've always said so, to you and to her, too. And I believe she likes me as much as she likes any of us fellows--but of course I'm not up to her, and she never flirted with me in her life! She's not the kind of girl who wants to collect scalps," he said, almost with anger. "I never thought of--caring for her. Why, I--I _couldn't_ care for Fred!" "But you were always talking about her, and--" "Of course I talked about her! Doesn't everybody talk about her? But as for being in love with her--Laura, I tell you, you are the only girl in existence, so far as I'm concerned. I suppose you don't care anything about me." Laura put her hands over her face, and laughed; then stretched them out to him, and the tears brimmed over.... "Oh, Howard, you are such a goose!" There was a speechless moment; then he put his arms around her, kissed the fluffy hair that brushed his lips, and said, "Oh, my little darling! my little love...." After that they had to talk it all over, and there were endless explanations. "You do believe I never thought of--anybody else?" he asked, again and again. And she said yes, she believed it, but she didn't understand it. "Why, I was so sure you were in love with her, I used to give you chances to be together. Do you remember that afternoon you went to say good-by to her, before you went to the Philippines? I stayed up-stairs to give you a chance to ask her." "_Laura!_" "I did." "How could you be so absurd?" "Everybody thought so." That silenced him. He was horribly ashamed. It was his fault, then, that night in the cottage? "Everybody thought so." So, naturally, Fred thought so--and she was the noblest and most generous woman in the world! "It's my fault somehow, that she spoke," he told himself, in a passion of humiliation. That night he wrote to her. The engagement was not to "come out" for two or three weeks;--"only the family must know," Laura said; but Howard had protested: "Fred--let's tell Fred?" "Well," Laura consented, reluctantly, "I'll go and see her to-morrow morning and make her swear not to tell." "She can keep a secret," he said. He did not add that Fred should learn the secret before to-morrow morning. "I'm the one to break it to her," he thought. Then mentally kicked himself for saying "break it."