Page:Dale - A Marriage Below Zero.djvu/69

Rh upon anybody. The ideas were there. Topsy-like, I suspect "they growed."

The subject I now have to deal with is my engagement. I had grown to like Arthur Ravener very much. I thought we had a great deal in common. I never felt that a woman was a silly chattering doll when I was with him. He would talk upon any subject with me, and never once in all our intercourse did he pay me a single compliment. He never showed that he admired me. All he ever said was that he liked talking to a sensible girl who looked upon the world very much as he did himself.

One evening as I was sitting alone at a detestable "musicale and dance," and wondering as usual why girls wasted their best years in training themselves to shine at such entertainments, I noticed Arthur Ravener and Captain Dillington enter the room. The former looked anxiously around—for me, of course, I knew that; the latter remained standing at the door, where he could see all that was going on. The reception accorded Damon and Pythias was always polite, but never cordial. The men seemed to avoid