"You fool, you! Why, lad, I've been kept amused by you two for a whole
evening, watching her play for your attention, saving her best smiles
for you, keeping her best attitudes for you, and letting all the
richness of her voice go out for--a block--a stone. Gad, the thing
still doesn't seem possible! Pierre, one instant of that girl would
give romance to a man's whole life."
"This girl? This Jack of ours?"
"He hasn't seen it! Why, if I hadn't seen years ago that she had tied
her hands and turned her heart over to you, I'd have been begging her
for a smile, a shadow of a hope."
"If I didn't know you, Dick, I'd say that you were partly drunk and
partly a fool."
"Here's a hundred--a cold hundred that I'm right. I'll make it a
thousand, if you dare."
"Dare what?"
"Ask her to marry you." "Marry--me?"
"Damn it all--well, then--whatever you like. But I say that if you go
back into that room and sit still and merely look at her, she'll be in
your arms within five minutes."
"I hate to take charity, but a bet is a bet.
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