She looked pathetic, her mouth drooped; then she smiled at him confidingly. He knew quite as well as if he had not been hard hit that she was flirting with him, but as long as she gave him his chance to win her she might do her transparent little best to make a fool of him. "Have you ever been in love?" asked Alexina softly. "Oh, about half-way several times, but always drew back in time ... knew it wasn't the real thing ... Youth fools itself, you know, for the sake of the sensation--or the race. Have you?" "Oh--" Alexina lifted her thin flexible shoulders airily and this time her color did not flow. "How is one to tell ... a girl in her first season ... when all men look so much alike? It is fun to flirt with them, when you have been shut up in boarding-school and hardly had a glimpse of life even in vacation. My New York relatives are terribly old-fashioned. It's great fun to give one man all the dances and watch the dado of dowagers look disapproving." And once more she gave him the quick smile of understanding that springs so spontaneously between youth and youth. "Well ... you might have given all those dances to me the other night, instead of to that fellow Dwight." "Oh, but you see, I had already promised them to him. Lady Victoria always comes so late." "That's true enough." His spirits rose a trifle. "When do you go--back to England, I mean? Not for a good long time, I hope. We have awfully good times down here. Janet Maynard and Olive Bascom live at San Mateo in the summer, and Aileen Lawton at Burlingame. They are my chums and we'd give you a ripping time. We'd like to have you take away the pleasantest possible memory of California instead of such a terrible one. I don't mean anything very gay of course. You mustn't think I'm heartless." And she showed the lower pearl of her eyes and looked like a madonna. "I'm afraid I must go soon. I've had an extension of leave already, and Hofer told me just before we left to-day that he thought he could let me have his private car inside of a week. They've been using it." IV There was not a dwelling in sight. The quiet of that old park with its brooding oaks was primeval. Behind her was the pink and blue glory of sky and mountain. Her eyes were like stars. He burst out boyishly: "If I only had more time! If only I could have met you even when I first came to San Francisco ... before ... before ... I'd--I'd like to marry you. It's fearfully soon to say such a thing. I feel like a fool. But I'm not the first man to fall madly in love at first sight ... and you ... you ... If I tell you now instead of waiting it's because there's so little time. Would you ... do you think you could marry me?" "Oh! Ah!" (She almost said Ow.) After all it was her first proposal. She was thrilled in spite of the fact that she was in love with another man, for she felt close to something elemental, hazily understood ... something in her own unsounded depths rushed to meet it.