I haven't
asked you to marry me. I'm not asking you now. Oh, not but what
you satisfy me. I sure know you're the wife for me. But how
about myself? Do you know me well enough know your own mind?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, and I ain't going to
take chances on it now. You've got to know for sure whether you
think you could get along with me or not, and I'm playing a slow
conservative game. I ain't a-going to lose for overlooking my
hand."
This was love-making of a sort beyond Dede's experience. Nor had
she ever heard of anything like it. Furthermore, its lack of
ardor carried with it a shock which she could overcome only by
remembering the way his hand had trembled in the past, and by
remembering the passion she had seen that very day and every day
in his eyes, or heard in his voice. Then, too, she recollected
what he had said to her weeks before: "Maybe you don't know what
patience is," he had said, and thereat told her of shooting
squirrels with a big rifle the time he and Elijah Davis had
starved on the Stewart River.
"So you see," he urged, "just for a square deal we've got to see
some more of each other this winter.
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