Then, as he still remained silent, Cornelia did what most people do when their ebulliences are received without encouraging comment—she eased herself by a series of repetitions, enthusiastic at first, but tapering in emphasis until she had settled down again into the casual. “It’s the positive fact; these younger girls _do_ make me feel a thousand—positively, I do assure you! You mayn’t believe it, but it’s the mere simple truth, I do assure you. It is, I do——” She checked herself, being about to say “I do assure you” again; and although her own ability to use the phrase charmed her, she feared that too much of it might appear to indicate a lack of versatility. She coughed delicately, as a proper bit of punctuation for the unfinished sentence;—then, as further punctuation, uttered sounds resembling a courteous kind of laughter, to signify amusement caused by her own remarks, and thus gradually reached a point where she could regard the episode as closed. Having successfully passed this rather difficult point, she looked up at him with the air of a person suddenly overtaken by a belated thought that should have arrived earlier. “Oh, by the by,” she said, “I suppose I ought to’ve asked this sooner, but I expect I forgot it because I was a little excited about your risking your li——” “I did nothing of the kind,” he interrupted, promptly and sharply. “What is it you wanted to ask me?” “Well, it was this, Mr. Bromley. We got to walking along together after you saved—after I nearly got run over—and I didn’t even ask you where you’re going.” “I’m on my way to lunch at the Blue Tea Room.” “You—you _are_?” Cornelia said in a strange tone. An impulse, rash and sudden, had affected her throat. She had never before been quite alone with the solitary inhabitant of her mountain’s summit; she had never before walked with him. Her walking was upon air, moreover. She was self-conscious, yet had no consciousness of walking—the rather, she floated in the crystal air of great altitudes; and, rapt in the transcendent presence beside her, she became intoxicated by the experience. Cornelia had fallen in love with Mr. Bromley sublimely, instantly, upon that day when he told her to think about books and life;—there seemed to be no other reason, though her own explanation defined him as the only man who had ever spoken to her inner self—and now that she found herself alone with him for the first time, she could not bear for that time to be brief. She was already expected at home for lunch, and she knew that her unexplained absence might cause more than mere comment in her domestic circle. Her impulse was, therefore, something more than indiscreet, taking all circumstances and the strictness of her mother into account. But the exciting moment had prevailed with Cornelia before she took anything into account.