"No, I won't invite you. But I won't put you out if you come."
"Because--I think you ought to, you know. Just to make me feel comfortable."
"Horrid! Because I won't break my promise?"
"It's understood. See here. I'll turn my back and walk away. If you come in it's not my fault."
"You needn't bother. I'm not coming." She turned and made as though to go.
She reappeared miraculously, her vanity appeased by Jerry's downfall, bobbed through the bent irons, and rose smiling decorously as Eve must have smiled when she watched Adam first bite the apple.
"Thanks," she laughed, clambering up the rocks. "It's awfully nice of you. I knew you would. I couldn't have come else."
"It doesn't really make much difference, I suppose," said Jerry dubiously.
"Whether I ask you or whether you just come."
"Positive. I was just passing this way and I saw you sitting here. I hadn't the slightest intention of coming in. Of course, when you _invited_ me, that made things different."
He laughed and motioned to a rock upon which she sank.
"Tell me," he said, "how you happen to be up here in the mountains alone. You don't belong around here. You didn't know about the wall, or about me, did you?"
"Of course not; not yesterday. But I do now. I asked last night."
"They weren't very polite. It doesn't do to ignore one's neighbors. They said you were a freak."
"And do you think I'm strange or unnatural?" he asked soberly.
"What else do they say?" Jerry asked after a thoughtful pause.
"That your precious Roger is a dealer in magic and spells; that you've already learned flying on a broomstick and practice it on nights when the moon is full; that you're hideously ugly; that you're wonderfully beautiful; that you live in a tree; that you sleep in a coffin; that you're digging for gold; that you've found the recipe for diamonds; that you've--"
"Now you're making fun of me," he laughed as she paused for lack of breath.
"I'm not. If there's anything that you are or aren't that I haven't heard, I can't imagine what it is. In other words, Jerry, you're the mystery of the county. Aren't you glad?"
"Glad? Of course not. It's all such utter rot."
"Of course. But doesn't it make you _feel_ mysterious?"
"Doesn't it ever occur to you how important a person you are?"