"No; please, no," she said, as Daylight started to follow.
Humbly acquiescent, he pulled Bob back, and the gate swung shut
between them. But there was more to say, and she did not ride
on.
"Listen, Miss Mason," he said, in a low voice that shook with
sincerity; "I want to assure you of one thing. I'm not just
trying to fool around with you. I like you, I want you, and I
was never more in earnest in my life. There's nothing wrong in
my intentions or anything like that. What I mean is strictly
honorable--"
But the expression of her face made him stop. She was angry, and
she was laughing at the same time.
"The last thing you should have said," she cried. "It's like
a--a matrimonial bureau: intentions strictly honorable; object,
matrimony. But it's no more than I deserved. This is what I
suppose you call urging like Sam Scratch."
The tan had bleached out of Daylight's skin since the time he
came to live under city roofs, so that the flush of blood showed
readily as it crept up his neck past the collar and overspread
his face. Nor in his exceeding discomfort did he dream that she
was looking upon him at that moment with more kindness than at
any time that day.
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