He had never felt less in the mood for entertaining casual friends than
he felt on that sunny afternoon in September as he lounged in the wide
stable-yard and waited for them. He had always liked Sheila Melrose, they
had a good deal in common. But curiously enough it was that very fact
that made him strangely reluctant to meet her now. In some inexplicable
fashion, he found her simple directness disconcerting. Toby's words stuck
obstinately in his mind, refusing to be dislodged. "She likes you well
enough not to want you to marry me." He realized beyond question that
those words had not been without some significance. It might be just
instinct with her, as Toby had declared, but that Sheila regarded his
engagement as a mistake he was fairly convinced. That she herself had any
feeling for him beyond that of friendship he did not for a moment
imagine. Bunny had no vanity in that direction. There was too much of the
boy, too much of the frank comrade, in his disposition for that. They
were pals, and the idea of anything deeper than palship on either side
had never seriously crossed his mind. He was honest in all his ways, and
his love for Toby--that wild and wonderful flower of first love--filled
all his conscious thoughts to the exclusion of aught beside.
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