第26章

"You understand," he said apologetically, "that I mean no discourtesy to your father or his offer. And"--he hesitated--"neither is my reason what you would infer.""Then what is it?" she asked, turning to him abruptly. "You know you have no other place when you leave here, nor any chance as good as the one father offers you. You are not fit for any other work, and you know it. You have no money to speculate with, nor can you get any. If you could, you would have never stayed here."He could not evade the appalling truthfulness of her clear eyes.

He knew it was no use to lie to her; she had evidently thoroughly informed herself regarding his past; more than that, she seemed to read his present thoughts. But not all of them! No! he could startle her still! It was desperate, but he had nothing now to lose. And she liked the truth,--she should have it!

"You are right," he said shortly; "these are not my reasons.""Then what reason have you?"

"You!"

"Me?" she repeated incredulously, yet with a rising color.

"Yes, YOU! I cannot stay here, and have you look down upon me.""I don't look down on you," she said simply, yet without the haste of repelling an unjust accusation. "Why should I? Mother and Ihave done the same work that you are doing,--if that's what you mean; and father, who is a man like yourself, helped us at first, until he could do other things better." She paused. "Perhaps you think so because YOU looked down on us when you first came here.""But I didn't," said Reddy quickly.

"You did," said the young girl quietly. "That's why you acted toward me as you did the night you walked home with me. You would not have behaved in that way to any San Francisco young lady--and I'm not one of your--fast--MARRIED WOMEN."Reddy felt the hot blood mount to his cheek, and looked away. "Iwas foolish and rude--and I think you punished me at the time," he stammered. "But you see I was right in saying you looked down on me," he concluded triumphantly.

This was at best a feeble sequitur, but the argument of the affections is not always logical. And it had its effect on the girl.

"I wasn't thinking of THAT," she said. "It's that you don't know your own mind.""If I said that I would stay and accept your father's offer, would you think that I did?" he asked quickly.

"I should wait and see what you actually DID do," she replied.

"But if I stayed--and--and--if I told you that I stayed on YOURaccount--to be with you and near you only--would you think that a proof?" He spoke hesitatingly, for his lips were dry with a nervousness he had not known before.

"I might, if you told father you expected to be engaged on those terms. For it concerns HIM as much as me. And HE engages you, and not I. Otherwise I'd think it was only your talk."Reddy looked at her in astonishment. There was not the slightest trace of coyness, coquetry, or even raillery in her clear, honest eyes, and yet it would seem as if she had taken his proposition in its fullest sense as a matrimonial declaration, and actually referred him to her father. He was pleased, frightened, and utterly unprepared.

"But what would YOU say, Nelly?" He drew closer to her and held out both his hands. But she retreated a step and slipped her own behind her.

"Better see what father says first," she said quietly. "You may change your mind again and go back to San Francisco."He was confused, and reddened again. But he had become accustomed to her ways; rather, perhaps, he had begun to recognize the quaint justice that underlaid them, or, possibly, some better self of his own, that had been buried under bitterness and sloth and struggled into life. "But whatever he says," he returned eagerly, "cannot alter my feelings to YOU. It can only alter my position here, and you say you are above being influenced by that. Tell me, Nelly--dear Nelly! have you nothing to say to me, AS I AM, or is it only to your father's manager that you would speak?" His voice had an unmistakable ring of sincerity in it, and even startled him--half rascal as he was!

The young girl's clear, scrutinizing eyes softened; her red resolute lips trembled slightly and then parted, the upper one hovering a little to one side over her white teeth. It was Nelly's own peculiar smile, and its serious piquancy always thrilled him.

But she drew a little farther back from his brightening eyes, her hands still curled behind her, and said, with the faintest coquettish toss of her head toward the hill: "If you want to see father, you'd better hurry up."With a sudden determination as new to him as it was incomprehensible, Reddy turned from her and struck forward in the direction of the hill. He was not quite sure what he was going for. Yet that he, who had only a moment before fully determined to leave the rancho and her, was now going to her father to demand her hand as a contingency of his remaining did not strike him as so extravagant and unexpected a denouement as it was a difficult one. He was only concerned HOW, and in what way, he should approach him. In a moment of embarrassment he hesitated, turned, and looked behind him.

She was standing where he had left her, gazing after him, leaning forward with her hands still held behind her. Suddenly, as with an inspiration, she raised them both, carried them impetuously to her lips, blew him a dozen riotous kisses, and then, lowering her head like a colt, whisked her skirt behind her, and vanished in the cover.

III.