Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/297

Rh to be a part of her. Now, wait, don't interrupt! I'm not trying to flatter you. You clipped the wings of anything like that one afternoon down at Long Beach. But what I do acknowledge is that the whole thing puzzles me, that I can't quite square you, as you sit there at that side of the table, with what happened that day at Long Beach, and with what happened, well, last night, if we don't want to go back too far."

I think I both liked him and hated him for the things he was saying. I didn't bother to ask myself why. But he was breaking into that high-walled garden which has "Personal" written over its gate-arch. And it had become an instinct of life with me, I suppose, to resent all such intrusions.

"You seem to be rather interested in me," I observed, by way of a "No-Trespassing" sign. "I am!" he promptly acknowledged. "I'm tremendously interested in you!"

"And how far back does this interest extend?" I coldly inquired.

"Back to the first day I ever met you," he had the candor to acknowledge.

"And how far does it promise to extend into the future?" I asked, more unsettled by his solemnity than I had been by his flippancy.