"O, no!" he cried in dismay. "Please don't----!"
"I see I must," she persisted. "You're so blind. It----"
"Josie, don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he entreated wildly.
"I can't help it: I've got to. It was--it was because I wanted to be
with you.... There!" she gasped, frightened by her own forwardness.
"Now I've said it!"
Duncan grasped frantically at straws. "But you don't really mean it,
Josie: you know you don't," he floundered. "You're just saying that
because you--you have such a kind heart and--ah--don't want to hurt
me--ah--because----"
She stemmed the flood of his protestations with a hand on his arm.
"Nat," she said gently, looking up into his face, "would it make you
happy to know I really meant it?"
"Why--ah--why shouldn't it, Josie?"
"Then please believe me, when I say it."
"But I do believe it. I..." He stammered and fell still.
"Because I do like you, Nat, very much, and--and it's very hard for me
to know that folks think I'm pursuing you and that you're trying to
avoid me."
"Josie!" he exclaimed reproachfully.
"Well, that's the way it looks," she affirmed plaintively. "You don't
want it to, do you?"
"Why, no; of course I don't."
"Then why don't you stop it?" She watched his face, her manner coy and
yielding. "Nat," she said in a softer voice, "if you like me as well as
I like you----"
He moved away a pace or two. "Ah, child!" he said, with a feeling that
the term was not misapplied, somehow, "you don't know what you're
saying."
"Yes, I do." She pouted. "I don't believe you... care anything about
me."
"Oh, Josie, please----"
"Well, anyway, you've never told me so." She turned an indignant
shoulder to him.
"How could I?"
"Why couldn't you?"
"But don't you see that I shouldn't, Josie?" He turned back to her
side, looked down at her, pleaded his defence with the fire of
desperation.
"Just think: you are an only daughter." Just what this had to do with
the case was not plain even to him. "An only daughter," he repeated--
"ah--not only your father's only daughter, but your mother's only
daughter. Your father--ah--is my friend. How unfair it would be to him."
But the girl interrupted with decision. "But papa wants you to... He
told me so."
He could only pretend not to understand. "But consider, Josie: you are
rich, an heiress: I'm a poor man. Would you like it to be said I was
after your money?"
"No one would dare say such a thing," she asserted with profound
conviction.
"Oh, yes, they would. You don't know the world as I do. And for all you
know, they might be right. How do you know that------"
"Nat!" A catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things!
I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such
a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and
_he_ says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would
rather see me your wife than any------"'
"Josie!"
The interjection was so imperative that she was silenced. "Why, what,
Nat?" she asked, rising.
"The time has come," he declared; "you must know the truth."
"Oh, Nat!"
"I'm _not_ what you think me," he continued, dramatic.
_"Oh, Nat!"_
"Nor what your father thinks me, nor what anybody else in this town
thinks me. I'm not a regular Christian--it's all a bluff: I didn't
know anything about a church till I came here. I smoke and I drink and
I swear and I gamble, and I only cut them all out in order to trick you
into caring for me!"
"Oh, Nat, I don't believe it."
"Alas, Josie!" he protested violently, "it's true, only too true!"
"But you did it to win my love, Nat?"
"Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake.
"Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!"
He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His
head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips
warm upon his own.
"Josie!" he gasped.
"Nat, my darling!"
With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl.
"Josie," he said earnestly, "I--I'm going to try to be a good husband
to you.... And that," he concluded, _sotto voce_, "wasn't in the
agreement!"