"Please--I don't like that sort of thing."

"Why not?" His voice was husky.

"It isn't right. Besides, the neighbors are always looking out the
windows."

The drop from her high standard of right and wrong to the neighbors'
curiosity appealed suddenly to her sense of humor. She threw back her head
and laughed. He joined her, after an uncomfortable moment. But he was
very much in earnest. He sat, bent forward, turning his new straw hat in
his hands.

"I guess you know how I feel. Some of the fellows have crushes on girls
and get over them. I'm not like that. Since the first day I saw you I've
never looked at another girl. Books can say what they like: there are
people like that, and I'm one of them."

There was a touch of dogged pathos in his voice. He was that sort, and
Sidney knew it. Fidelity and tenderness--those would be hers if she
married him. He would always be there when she wanted him, looking at her
with loving eyes, a trifle wistful sometimes because of his lack of those
very qualities he so admired in her--her wit, her resourcefulness, her
humor. But he would be there, not strong, perhaps, but always loyal.

"I thought, perhaps," said Joe, growing red and white, and talking to the
hat, "that some day, when we're older, you--you might be willing to marry
me, Sid. I'd be awfully good to you."