 his, and been fascinated by some of them, but
he had not known what it was to love them. He had whistled in a masterful,
careless way, and they had come to him. They had been diversions, incidents,
part of the game men play, but a small part at most. And now, and for the first
time, he was a suppliant, tender and timid and doubting. He did not know the way
of love, nor its speech, while he was frightened at his loved one's clear
innocence.
    In the course of getting acquainted with a varied world, whirling on through
the ever changing phases of it, he had learned a rule of conduct which was to
the effect that when one played a strange game, he should let the other fellow
play first. This had stood him in good stead a thousand times and trained him as
an observer as well. He knew how to watch the thing that was strange, and to
wait for a weakness, for a place of entrance, to divulge itself. It was like
sparring for an opening in fist-fighting. And when such an opening came, he knew
by long experience to play for it and to play hard.
    So he waited with Ruth and watched, desiring to speak his love but not
daring. He was afraid of shocking her, and he was not sure of himself. Had he
but known it, he was following the right course with her. Love came into the
world before articulate speech, and in its own early youth it had learned ways
and means that it had never forgotten. It was in this old, primitive way that
Martin wooed Ruth. He did not know he was doing it at first, though later he
divined it. The touch of his hand on hers was vastly more potent than any word
he could utter, the impact of his strength on her imagination was more alluring
than the printed poems and spoken passions of a thousand generations of lovers.
Whatever his tongue could express would have appealed, in part, to her judgment;
but the touch of hand, the fleeting contact, made its way directly to her
instinct. Her judgment was as young as she, but her instincts were as old as the
race and older. They had been young when love was young, and they were wiser
than convention and opinion and all the new-born things. So her judgment did not
act. There was no call upon it, and she did not realize the strength of the
appeal Martin made from moment to moment to her love-nature. That he
