Mixed up with his desire for adventure was a vision of a beautiful girl
to whom he should offer his love and service. He could not picture her
clearly to himself ... none of the girls in Ballyards bore the
slightest resemblance to her. Sometimes, indeed, he thought that this
beautiful girl was like Lady Castlederry ... only Lady Castlederry,
somehow, although she was so very lovely, had a cold stupid look in her
eyes, and he was very certain that this beautiful girl had bright,
alert eyes.

There had been a passage of love-making between Aggie Logan and him,
conducted entirely by Aggie Logan. She had taken him aside one day, in
the middle of a game of "I spy," and had said to him "Will you court
me, Johnnie?"

"No," he had replied.

"Do you not love me then?" she enquired.

"No," he said again.

"But I want you to court me," she persisted.

"I don't care what you want," he retorted. "I won't court you because I
don't want to court you. I don't like you. You're too much of a girner
for me!"

"I'm not a girner," she protested.

"You are. You start crying the minute anything happens to you or if