Because you are thus let into Miss Hastings' naughty secret, so
well veiled behind an air of earnest and almost cold dignity, you
must not do her the injustice of thinking her unusually artful.
Such artfulness is common enough; it secures husbands by the
thousand and by the tens of thousands. No, only in the skill of
artfulness was Miss Hastings unusual.
As the long strides of the tall, slender man brought him rapidly
nearer, his face came into plain view. A refined, handsome face,
dark and serious. He had dark-brown eyes--and Miss Hastings did
not like brown eyes in a man. She thought that men should have
gray or blue or greenish eyes, and if they were cruel in their
love of power she liked it the better.
``Hello, Dave,'' she cried in a pleasant, friendly voice. She
was posed--in the most unconscious of attitudes-- upon a rustic
bench so that her extraordinary figure was revealed at its most
attractive.
The young man halted before her, his breath coming quickly--not
altogether from the exertion of his steep and rapid climb.
``Jen, I'm mad about you,'' he said, his brown eyes soft and
luminous with passion. ``I've done nothing but think about you
in the week you've been back. I didn't sleep last night, and
I've come up here as early as I dared to tell you--to ask you to
marry me.''
He did not see the triumph she felt, the joy in having subdued
another of these insolently superior males. Her eyes were
discreetly veiled; her delightful mouth was arranged to express
sadness.
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