"Other things. I've told you enough."
"What do you care?"
"Well, I do care. This is the only house you come to. Your visits must end now."
"End?" Farwell echoed. "I guess not. Not unless you absolutely forbid me to come. And then I don't know. I'd find it pretty hard."
"Nonsense!"
"I tell you I would," he protested. "You don't know."
"Bosh! We're not so fascinating as that."
Now Farwell was of the battle-axe type. He was accustomed to take what he wanted, to smash through opposition. He looked at the girl facing him in the fading light, and a great desire swelled within him. Her words gave the needed spur to his courage, and he went to the point as he would have gone in to quell a riot in a camp.
"'We,'" he said. "Who's talking of 'we'? I'm not. I come to see you. You ought to know that. Of course you know it. I didn't think I'd ever fall in love, but I have. You might as well know it now. I don't know whether you think anything of me or not; it would be just my luck if you didn't. Anyway, that's how I feel, and I'm not going to give up seeing you just because some people have set a crazy yarn going."
The words boiled out of him like steam from a hot spring. He scowled at her ferociously, his eyes hot and angry. It would have been difficult to imagine a more unloverlike attitude. And yet she had no doubt of his sincerity. She would have been less than woman if she had not suspected his feelings before. But she had not expected this outbreak.