The rein was dangling, and Babcock reached his left arm around the waist
of his lady-love. He had now and again made the same demonstration with
others jauntily, but this was a different matter. She was not to be
treated like other women. She was a goddess to him, even in his ardor,
and he reached gingerly. Selma did not wholly withdraw from the spread
of his trembling arm, though this was the first man who had ever
ventured to lay a finger on her.

"I'd have to give up my school," she said.

"They could get another teacher."

"_Could_ they?"

"Not one like you. You see I'm clumsy, but I'm crazy for you, Selma."
Emboldened by the obvious feebleness of her opposition, he broadened his
clutch and drew her toward him. "Say you will, sweetheart."

This time she pulled herself free and sat up in the chaise. "Would you
let me do things?" she asked after a moment.

"Do things," faltered Babcock. What could she mean? She had told him on
the way over that her mother had chosen her name from a theatrical
playbill, and it passed through his unsophisticated brain that she might
be thinking of the stage.

"Yes, do something worth while. Be somebody. I've had the idea I could,
if I ever got the chance." Her hands were folded in her lap; there was a
wrapt expression on her thin, nervous face, and a glitter in her keen
eyes, which were looking straight at the moon, as though they would