think I'd like to be wondered about—by you—very much."
Claire stared at him incredulously, for he seemed to mean what he said; and she remembered how quickly desolated gentlemen are caught, sometimes, on the rebound. This thought disturbed her, not because she was at all a dog in the manger, or could be jealous of another's seizing upon what she, herself, rejected, but because she had a liking for Walter that was almost a fondness, and she admired him. His native talent and a genius for work had made him one of the best young architects in New York; he was kind, generous and able—a man much too good to be caught on the rebound by an eighteen-year-old bit of peach-bloom. And here Claire consoled herself with a difference between eighteen and twenty-five. "Never a thought in that little head except about herself—not one! She's making poor old Walter believe she's thinking of him; but eighteen can't think of anything except itself. The poor thing ought to know better than to trust her—she might actually marry him! Such things have happened often enough."
Ah, that peach-bloom! Dangerous to any man of
