stretched out his hand and laid it on her large round arm a little
above the elbow. The flush deepened in her face, and he felt a slight
trembling under his fingers like the breast of a frightened bird.

"Blossom," he repeated, half mocking, half tender, "do you think you
will ever like me better than you like Mr. Mullen?"

At this her rustic pride came suddenly between them, and withdrawing
her arm from his clasp, she stepped out of the bridle path into the wet
orchard grass that surrounded them.

"I've known him so much longer," she replied.

"And if you know me longer will you like me better, Blossom?"

Then as she still drew back, he pressed nearer, and spoke her name again
in a whisper.

"Blossom--Blossom, are you afraid of me? Do you think I would hurt you?"

The gentleness in his voice stayed her flight for an instant, and in
that instant, as she looked up at him, he stooped quickly and kissed her
mouth.

"What a damned ass I've made of myself," he thought savagely, when she
broke from him and fled over the mill brook into the Revercombs' pasture
beyond. She did not look back, but sped as straight as a frightened hare
to the covert; and by this brilliant, though unconscious coquetry, she
had wrested the victory from him at the moment when it had appeared to
fall too easily into his hands.