"
He cast down his eyes.
"Until this moment," he said, "I have never acknowledged to myself that
I was in doubt. I see what you mean, and it shows that I have been
playing with fire."
She looked at him questioningly, then turned the subject.
"Which is perhaps a hint that our fire is going down. Sit still,
please. Every woman likes to tend her own fire."
"I should have learned that by this time," was his answer. "I lost an
inheritance once by insisting upon fixing a fire."
"That sounds interesting. Is it proper to ask for the story?"
"Oh, there isn't much of a story. I had a great-aunt who was worth a
lot of money, and who was eccentric. She was in a way fond of me when I
was a child, and used to have me at the house a good deal. I confess I
didn't like it much. Things went by rule, and the rules were often
pretty queer. One of them was that nobody should presume to touch the
fire if she was in the room. I liked to play with the fire as well as
she did, and when I was a boy just in my teens I used to do it. After
she'd corrected me half a dozen times I got into my foolish pate that
it was my duty to cure her of her whim.
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