Page:Malvina of Brittany - Jerome (1916).djvu/256

 evening apropos of nothing at all. "No one will ever know how hard I try not to dislike him."

Abner looked up.

"Sometimes," continued Ann, "I tell myself I have almost succeeded. And then he will go and do something that will bring it all on again."

"What does he do?" asked Abner.

"Oh, I can't tell you," confessed Ann. "If I told you it would sound as if it was my fault. It's all so silly. And then he thinks such a lot of himself. If one only knew why! He can't tell you himself when you ask him."

"You have asked him?" queried Abner.

"I wanted to know," explained Ann. "I thought there might be something in him that I could like."

"Why do you want to like him?" asked Abner, wondering how much she had guessed.

"I know," wailed Ann. "You are hoping that when I am grown up I shall marry him. And I don't want to. It's so ungrateful of me."

"Well, you're not grown up yet," Abner consoled her. "And so long as you are feel-