Listening with rapt, almost worshipping attention, yet noting no word, the giant sat huddled up in an awkward, happy bunch at the feet of the youthful Gamaliel. A bar of lamplight from the opposite side of the street filtered through the swaying window curtains, bringing her half-hidden head with its dusky crown of hair into vague relief. From under the shadowy brows, her great eyes glowed in the dim light. Her dainty, flower face was very earnest. Caleb felt an almost irresistible desire to pass his great, rough palm gently over her features; to catch and kiss one of those tiny, earnestly gesturing hands of hers. She was so little, so young, so pretty. And she wasting all that loveliness on him, when she might be fascinating some eligible man. The thought reminded Caleb of his interview with Jack Hawarden. Curious to learn how the lad had availed himself of the permission to woo Desirée, Conover broke in at her next pause, with the abrupt question:
“Young Hawarden been here to-day?”
“Why, yes,” said Desirée in surprise, “This noon.”
“Ask you to marry him?”
“He told you?” she cried.
“Yes. Beforehand. Didn’t he say I’d gave him leave? No? Well, I s’pose he wouldn’t be likely to. But I did. Sent him on, to try his luck. With my blessin’.”
“What do you mean? Did that foolish boy—?”
“Came like a little man an’ asked my permission, as your guardian, to make a proposal to you.”
“And you told him he could? What business was it of yours, I’d like to know.”
“I told him it wasn’t any business of mine. That’s why I let him come. If it was my business, I’d have you shut up in a big place with walls all around it; an’ kittens an’ canary birds an’ all sorts of fluffy things for you to play with. An’ no man but me should ever come within a hundred miles of you. Then there’d be no danger of your runnin’ off an’ gettin’ married to some geezer who’d teach you to think I was the sort of man that ought to be fed in the kitchen an’ never ’lowed in the parlor. Oh, I know.”