As Lawrence Croft walked down Pine Top Hill his mind was in a good deal of a hubbub.

The mind of almost any lover would be stirred up if he came fresh from an interview, in which his lady had pinned him, to use a cruel figure, in various places on the wall to see how he would spin and buzz in different lights.

But the disdainful pin had not yet gone through a vital part of Lawrence's hopes, and they had strength to spin and buzz a good deal yet.

As soon as he should have an opportunity he would rack his brains to find out what it was that had put Roberta March into such a strange humor.

No one who simply desired to decline the addresses of a gentleman would treat her lover as Miss March had treated him.