Part 56 (1/2)
”No, no--_please_ don't--please stand up again. Sit over there,--I can think better.”
”Think quickly. This is Sat.u.r.day, and to-morrow is their busy day. They may not sit up late to-night.”
She arose with a little shrug of desperation that proclaimed her to be in the power of a mad man. She looked at her face in the oval mirror, wiping her eyes and making little pa.s.ses and pats at her disordered hair. He went over to her.
”No, no--please go over there again. Sit down a moment--let me think.
I'll talk to you presently.”
There was silence for five minutes. He watched her, while she narrowed her eyes in deep thought.
Then he looked at his watch.
”I can give you an hour, if you've anything to say before it's done--not longer.”
She drew a long breath.
”Mr. Bines, are you mad? Can't you be rational?”
”I haven't been irrational, I give you my word, not once since I came here.”
He looked at her steadily. All at once he saw her face go crimson. She turned her eyes from his with an effort.
”I'm going back to Montana in the morning. I want you to marry me to-night--I won't even wait one more day--one more hour. I know it's a thing you never dreamt of--marrying a poor man. You'll look at it as the most disgraceful act of folly you could possibly commit, and so will every one else here--but you'll _do_ it. To-morrow at this time you'll be half-way to Chicago with me.”
”Mr. Bines,--I'm perfectly reasonable and serious--I mean it--are you quite sure you didn't lose your wits when you lost your money?”
”It _may_ be considered a witless thing to marry a girl who would marry for money--but never mind _that_--I'm used to taking chances.”
She glanced up at him, curiously.
”You know I'm to marry Mr. Shepler the tenth of next month.”
”Your grammar is faulty--tense is wrong--You should say 'I _was_ to have married Mr. Shepler.' I'm fastidious about those little things, I confess.”
”How can you jest?”
”I can't. Don't think this is any joke. _He'll_ find out.”
”Who will find out,--what, pray?”
”He will. He's already said he was afraid there might have been some nonsense between you and me, because we talked that evening at the Oldakers'. He told my grandfather he wasn't at all sure of you until that day I lost my money.”
”Oh, I see--and of course you'd like your revenge--carrying me off from him just to hurt him.”
”If you say that I'll hold you in my arms again.” He started toward her. ”I've loved you _so_, I tell you--all the time--all the time.”
”Or perhaps it's a brutal revenge on me,--after thinking I'd only marry for money.”
”I've loved you always, I tell you.”
He came up to her, more gently now, and took up her hand to kiss it. He saw the ring.