"Oh, yes; far better!" the girl said earnestly. "Secrets are terrible things between people who--care for each other." "How cautiously she chooses her words," Magnus said, in the same hard way. "Has to stop and think whether she even cares." "Magnus, that is not true." "Didn't you stop to think what to say?" "Yes." "Well, then." "People stop to think for different reasons." "You were afraid of saying too much, and you know you were." "If you are so very far-seeing, perhaps you can also tell me why." "Because you are as true as the blue sky," said Magnus; "and as tender, and so you wanted to use the softest words you could, and hurt me the least." "You would not 'make a max,' as you call it, on girls," said Cherry, her lips parting in a bit of a smile. "I did not choose my words so, at all." "Why, then?" "Because I am a girl, I think," she answered rather slowly. "And so did not want to give more pain than you could help. That is just what I said." "Do you ever play stupid at West Point?" Cherry said a little impatiently. "No need to play it." "Well, there is no need now," she said, springing up; "and I am going home till you come back to your common sense." "No, don't go!" Magnus said, catching hold of her dress. "Sit down and lecture me, scold me, say what you will of me, only stay a while longer. Cherry, you do not know what it is to have the only girl in the world throw you off." She turned then, and stood looking down at him; the fair face telling all he wanted to know; but, as Cherry had said, he was not well read in girls. "Magnus," she said, "what makes you talk so? I am not 'the only girl in the world'--but I have not thrown you off. You know I could not do that. Unless----" "Unless what?" he said eagerly. "Unless I knew you had _chosen_ such ways," the girl said, growing very white. "And then it would be you that had thrown me off." XXXIV AMBUSHES Soft silken hours, Open suns, shady bowers; 'Bove all, nothing within that lowers. --CRASHAW. Magnus was as good as his word, and stayed all day. What though Cherry was summarily sent off, after the early dinner, to sleep away the effects of her headache. Whether she slept or not I would not dare say; but certainly Magnus talked, and kept Mr. Erskine well amused, till she appeared again.