"Good gracious, what's the matter!" she cried, running
towards him in alarm. She was deeply flushed herself, but her eyes
were as clear as clear water, and she ran with her usual fawn-like
swiftness. Arnold dropped on the bench, waving her a speechless
reassurance. With his first breath he said, "Gee! but you can hit it
up, for a girl!"
"What's the _matter_ with you?" Sylvia asked again, sitting down
beside him.
"Nothing! Nothing!" he panted. "My wind! It's confoundedly short."
He added a moment later, "It's tobacco--this is the sort of time the
cigarettes get back at you, you know!" The twilight dropped slowly
about them like a thin, clear veil. He thrust out his feet, shapely in
their well-made white shoes, surveyed them with dissatisfaction, and
added with moody indifference: "And cocktails too. They play the
dickens with a fellow's wind."
Sylvia said nothing for a moment, looking at him by no means
admiringly. Her life in the State University had brought her into such
incessant contact with young men that the mere fact of sitting
beside one in the twilight left her unmoved to a degree which Mr.
Sommerville's mother would have found impossible to imagine. When she
spoke, it was with an impatient scorn of his weakness, which might
have been felt by a fellow-athlete: "What in the world makes you do
it, then?"
"Why not?" he said challengingly.
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