I like each of you for exactly the same
reasons. . . . Yes--Jane needs you, and you need her.'' She
looked at him with her sweet, frank smile like a breeze straight
from the sweep of a vast plateau. ``Why, it's so obvious that I
wonder you and she haven't become engaged long ago. You ARE fond
of her, aren't you?''
``Oh, Selma,'' cried Davy, ``I LOVE you. I want YOU.''
She shook her head with a quaint, fascinating expression of
positiveness. ``Now, my friend,'' said she, ``drop that fancy.
It isn't sensible. And it threatens to become silly.'' Her
smile suddenly expanded into a laugh. ``The idea of you and me
married--of ME married to YOU! I'd drive you crazy. No, I
shouldn't stay long enough for that. I'd be of on the wings of
the wind to the other end of the earth as soon as you tried to
put a halter on me.''
He did not join in her laugh. She rose. ``You will think again
before you go in with those people--won't you, David?'' she said,
sober and earnest.
``I don't care what becomes of me,'' he said boyishly.
``But _I_ do,'' she said. ``I want to see you the man you can
be.''
``Then--marry me,'' he cried.
Her eyes looked gentle friendship; her passionate lips curled in
scorn. ``I might marry the sort of man you could be,'' she said,
``but I never could marry a man so weak that, without me to
bolster him up, he'd become a stool-pigeon.''
And she turned and walked away.
V.
Pages:
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187