SOMETHING ABOUT CLOTHES, AND MEN, AND CATS Smiling over the settler's whimsical humour, Gwynne turned to his companion, anticipating a responsive smile. Instead he was rewarded by an expression of acute dismay in her dark eyes. He recalled seeing just such a look in the eyes of a cornered deer. She met his gaze for a fleeting instant and then, turning away, walked rapidly over to the little window, where she peered out into the darkness. He waited a few moments for her to recover the composure so inexplicably lost, and then spoke,--not without a trace of coldness in his voice. "Pray have this chair." He drew the rocking-chair up to the fireplace, setting it down rather sharply upon the strip of rag carpet that fronted the wide rock-made hearth. "You need not be afraid to be left alone with me. I am a most inoffensive person." He saw her figure straighten. Then she faced him, her chin raised, a flash of indignation in her eyes. "I am not afraid of you," she said haughtily. "Why should you presume to make such a remark to me?" "I beg your pardon," he said, bowing. "I am sorry if I have offended you. No doubt, in my stupidity, I have been misled by your manner. Now, will you sit down--and be friendly?" His smile was so engaging, his humility so genuine, that her manner underwent a swift and agreeable change. She advanced slowly to the fireplace, a shy, abashed smile playing about her lips. "May I not stand up for a little while?" she pleaded, with mock submissiveness. "I do so want to grow tall." "To that I can offer no objection," he returned; "although in my humble opinion you would do yourself a very grave injustice if you added so much as the eighth of an inch to your present height." "I feel quite small beside you, sir," she said, taking her stand at the opposite end of the hearth, from which position she looked up into his admiring eyes. "I am an overgrown, awkward lummix," he said airily. "The boys called me 'beanpole' at college." "You are not an awkward lummix, as you call yourself,--though what a lummix is I have not the slightest notion. Mayhap if you stood long enough you might grow shorter. They say men do,--as they become older." She ran a cool, amused eye over his long, well-proportioned figure, taking in the butter-nut coloured trousers, the foppish waistcoat, the high-collared blue coat, and the handsome brown-thatched head that topped the whole creation. He was almost a head taller than she, and yet she was well above medium height. "How old are you?" she asked, abruptly. Again she was serious, unsmiling. "Twenty-five," he replied, looking down into her dark, inquiring eyes with something like eagerness in his own. He was saying over and over again to himself that never had he seen any one so lovely as she. "I am six years older than you. Somehow, I feel that I am younger. Rather odd, is it not?"