"
"Mercy, I have dozens! Shall I lend you some?"
"No! mine's bigger than all yours put together."
She flashed a look at him from under her tilted hat-brim:
"What on earth's the matter with you? You look so solemn. I don't believe
you wanted to bring me home, after all."
Quin didn't know what was the matter with him. Heretofore he had fallen
in love as a pebble falls into a pond. There had been a delicious splash,
and subsequent encircling ripples, each one further away than the last.
But this time the pebble had fallen into a whirlpool, and was being
turned and tossed and played with in a manner wholly bewildering.
"Oh, I wanted to come, all right," he said slowly. "I _had_ to come. Say,
I wish you weren't going away to-morrow."
"So do I. I'd give anything not to."
"But why do you go, then?"
"Because I am always made to do what I don't want to do."
Quin, who had decided views on individual freedom and the consent of the
governed, promptly espoused her cause.
"They've got no right to force you. You ought to decide things for
yourself."
"Do you really think that? Do you think a girl has the right to go ahead
and do as she likes, regardless of her family?"
"That depends on whether she wants to do the right thing.
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