"Yes, sir; thank you;" and I backed away.

"Are you a reporter?" asked the girl, as I was about to pass by her.

"Yes, I am."

"Do you draw pictures?"

"No, I do not."

"Do you write novels?"

"No," with a nervous laugh.

There is nothing like the process of interrogation to make one person
lose interest in another.

"Oh; I thought perhaps you did," she said, and turned her back to me.

I passed through the darkened halls of the house and into the street.

I never expected to see her again, but it was otherwise ordained. We
came together three years later at Block Island. She was eighteen now,
gathering the rosy flowers of her first season. She remembered the
incident in the garden, and we laughed over it. A few dances, two or
three evenings on the verandas, watching the sea, moon-lit, as it
sprawled among the rocks below us, and the even tenor of my way ceased
to be. I appreciated how far she was above me; so I worshipped her
silently and from afar. I told her my ambitions, confidences so
welcome to feminine ears, and she rewarded me with a small exchange.