Angrily the girl struck down his outstretched hand.

"After this, if a fellow should kiss you, it would be a crime, wouldn't
it?" he bantered.

"Don't you dare try it, Tom Dixon," she flashed fiercely.

Hitherto he had usually thought of her as a school girl, even though she
was teaching in the Willow's district. Now it came to him with what
dignity and unconscious pride her head was poised, how little the
home-made print could conceal the long, free lines of her figure, still
slender with the immaturity of youth. Soon now the woman in her would
awaken and would blossom abundantly as the spring poppies were doing on
the mountain side. Her sullen sweetness was very close to him. The rapid
rise and fall of her bosom, the underlying flush in her dusky cheeks,
the childish pout of the full lips, all joined in the challenge of her
words. Mostly it was pure boyishness, the impish desire to tease, that
struck the audacious sparkle to his eyes, but there was, too, a
masculine impulse he did not analyse.

"So you won't be friends?"

If he had gone about it the right way he might have found forgiveness
easily enough. But this did not happen to be the right way.

"No, I won't." And she gave him her profile again.

"Then we might as well have something worth while to quarrel about," he
said, and slipping his arm round her neck, he tilted her face toward
him.