"Why?"

He grinned sheepishly and stooped to break off a dry twig from a
nearby bush.

"By the way you didn't let me kiss you," he admitted. "A fellow likes
that in a girl. Did you know it?" He tossed away the twig and looked back
at the girl as he asked the question.

"I thought they liked--the other thing."

"They do and they don't," said Ted, his paradox again betraying a
scarcely to be expected wisdom. "But that is neither here nor there. What
I started out to say was that I'm glad you don't make a practice of this
pick-up business. It--it's no good," he summed up.

"I know." Madeline nodded understanding of the import of his warning. She
was far too handsome and too prematurely developed physically to be
devoid of experience of the ways of the opposite sex. Like Ophelia she
knew there were tricks in the world and she liked frank Ted Holiday the
better for reminding her of them. "I won't do it," she promised. "That
is, unless you don't ever come back yourself. I don't know what I'll do
then--something awful, maybe."

"I'll come fast enough. I'll come to-morrow." he added obeying a sudden
impulse, Ted fashion.

"Will you?" The girl's face flushed with delight. "When?"