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 Sweet on Elise. They think I'm awfully opposed—sneak off like that, you know, so that I won't see. They think I don't know—think we're all fools, Bevans. Maybe we are. It would surprise them to know I'm for it—that would take all the fun out of it. I believe girls ought to marry young—out of the way—out of mischief. Clean young feller—dull dog, though."

"Does Elise seem to—to fancy him?" asked Austin, and even put like this in the face of fact she knew to the contrary, the idea disgusted him.

"Don't know—treats him like the devil—that's no sign with a woman that she isn't crazy about him, though."

"Oh, Mr. Johns, for Heaven's sake don't get off that stuff about woman's being a mystery," cried Bevans. "Take it from the head of a girls' school that she isn't—she's just so clear and direct that men can't get the hang of it."

Mr. Johns gave a tremendous grunt. "Do you mean to tell me that at your age you think you know more about women than I do?" he shouted.

"Of course I think I do—and I do, too," said Austin. "I've got beyond that old mystery stage, anyhow."