"Good-bye, my darling," he called to her. Prudence stood back and waved her hand to him, waved it gaily with a glad sense of relief. The last she saw of him as the train began to move out of the station was his grave face regarding her mournfully as he pulled up the window before settling down in his corner. Prudence hurried out to the waiting carriage with her thoughts in a whirl. This business of being engaged was an altogether perplexing affair. She had not expected things to be like this somehow. She did not know quite what she had expected; but she had never imagined that the stolid Edward Morgan could assume the role of lover and confidently look for a similar response from her; she had believed he would maintain the more dignified attitude of a warm and affectionate friendliness throughout their engagement; and she felt vexed and cheated because he had disappointed her in this belief. "It's absurd," she told herself, with her hot face turned to the sharp crisp air which came through the open window, "for him to imagine I am going to let him make love to me when I only want him to be nice and kind always." But she began dimly to apprehend that the absurdity was likely to go on. Bobby came home for the Christmas holidays and talked to her seriously of the mistake she was making. He did not look forward to the prospect of coming home finally to find Prudence gone; and the next term at school was his last. "Beastly rotten it will be here without you," he remarked. "You might have waited, Prue, a little longer. You don't love old Morgan, do you?" That was a poser for Prudence. "I'm fond of him," she answered guardedly. "He's kind, and generous. When I am married I shall be able to do as I like." "Rot!" he retorted. "It will mean simply exchanging one dulness for another. Then you'll vary the dullness by falling in love with some one else, and there'll be a scandal. I know you. You'll never settle down to a stick-in-the-mud existence with old Morgan. And serve him jolly well right for being such an ass." Prudence regarded him with newly awakened interest, her expression slightly aggrieved. "I had no idea you held such a low opinion of me," she said. He laughed. "That's human nature, old girl. If you intend to remain faithful to old Morgan you'll not have to look at another man, because when the right man comes along you'll know it; all the wedding rings in the world won't keep you blind to facts. You chuck the silly old geyser," he counselled in the inelegant phraseology he affected, "before you tie your life into a hopeless knot." She shook her head. "It's not so easy," she said. "They'd be down on you, of course. But I'd stand by you. We'd worry through." "I didn't mean that." She attempted explanations. "He's so good and kind. You don't understand. I'd feel the meanest thing on the face of the earth if I hurt him deliberately like that. And there isn't any need. I _want_ to marry him."