"Open the switch and sidetrack me!
But just tell me one thing: is there anybody you _are_ interested in?"
"Now, see here, Quin," said Eleanor peremptorily, "you haven't any right
to ask me questions like that. All I promised was that you could be my
chum."
"Yes; but I meant a chum plus."
"Well, you'd better look out or you will be a chum minus." Then she
caught sight of his eyes, and leaned forward in sudden contrition. "I'm
sorry to hurt you, Quin, but you must understand----"
"I do," he admitted miserably. "Only this week out here together, and the
way you've looked at me sometimes, made me kind of hope----" His voice
broke. "It's all right. I'll wait some more."
This was the time Eleanor should have carried out her intention of going
back to the house. Instead, she sat on in the deepening twilight under
the feminine delusion that she was being good to the miserable youth who
sat huddled close to her knees on the step below her.
Through his whole big being Quin was quivering with the sense of her
nearness, afraid to move for fear something stronger than his will would
make him seize her slender little body and crush it to him in an agony of
tenderness and yearning.
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