“Absolvo te!” she intoned. “I’m a little cat ever to scratch you; and I’m silly to let perfectly harmless things hurt me. I don’t know why I do it. Sometimes I don’t know my own self any more than if I was a Frisian market woman in a pink baize bonnet and number ten sabots. It’s just because you’re so good and sweet and gentle that I walk all over you. Because you let me do it I take out all my bad, horrid, nasty tempers on you. And then you look so surprised and unhappy when I say snippy, mean things to you; or when I tell you you make me feel badly and—oh where is my nominative case? Anyway, you’re my dear, old splendid chum. And I wouldn’t be so cranky to you if I didn’t care more for your little finger than for any other man’s head. And if you’d only hit me or swear at me now and then, I’d be lots nicer. Why don’t you?”
Caleb, agape, yet grinning in feeble delight, tried to understand part of this rapid-fire speech of penance. Almost wholly failing to grasp her meaning, he nevertheless gathered that he was pardoned for his unknown offence and that she was once more happy. Hence the weight was off his mind and he rejoiced.
“And just to punish myself,” Desirée was saying, “I’m going to tell you about Jack Hawarden. He came here and asked me to marry him. And I told him he was an awfully nice boy. And I felt I was unkind and cruel and a lot of other things because I had to tell him I wasn’t in love with him. But he behaved beautifully. He’s going to keep on coming to see me, just the same and we’re going to be just as good friends as ever. But he says he isn’t going to give up trying to make me change my mind. Then I changed the subject by making him listen to Siegfried-Mickey singing ‘The Death of Ase.’ And from that I got him to talking about the things he’s writing. He says he believes some day his stories will sell like wild-fire. If you’ve never tried to sell wild-fire you can’t appreciate what an eager market there is for it. I told him that and he didn’t like it very well. But altogether I steered him off from talking about marrying me. So the rest didn’t matter very much. Did it? Are you sure you can remember all the things I explained to you about that dinner? At the musicale itself I shall try to get a chance to take you under my own wing, and keep you from burning your poor fingers. But—”
“If you think I’m goin’ to queer you, at the musicle, by taggin’ around after you, you’re dead wrong,” declared Caleb. “You get ’bout as much of me as you need, here at your own house; without havin’ me scarin’ better men away from you at parties. No, no. I’m goin’ to set in a corner an’ watch folks fallin’ over ’emselves to talk to you.”
“You big boy!” she scoffed, tenderly. “In the first place, people sit up stiffly, without talking, while the music is going on,—at least they’re supposed to. In the second, don’t think just because you’re foolish enough to like being with me, that other people will. I don’t think there will be any very tumultuous applause when I enter.”
“It’ll be the hit of the evenin’ as far as I’m concerned,” stoutly averred Caleb. “I’m goin’ out to the Arareek Club in a few minutes,” he went on, glancing at his watch. “There’s a dinner given to the golf champion or middleweight tattin’-work-expert or some such c’lebrity. I’m going to drop in for the speeches. It’ll be my first appearance there since they didn’t kick me out. Caine’s goin’ too; for the speeches. Him an’ Miss Standish, I b’lieve. Won’t you come along?”
“I can’t,” lamented the girl. “Mrs. Cole and her sister from Denver are coming in to see Aunt Mary. They’ll want to play whist. They always do. And I promised Aunt Mary I’d stay and make out the four. Whist is such a jolly game, I think,—for people that like it. I hate it. But I’d be a splendid player, Aunt Mary says, if I could ever remember what cards are out. So I’m in for a happy, happy evening. I wish they could ask the cook to play instead. Oh, dear! Why does one always feel so horrid when one is doing people a good turn?”
“I don’t know,” volunteered Caleb. “I never tried.”
“Never tried!” echoed Desirée. “Why will you talk such nonsense? You know you’re always doing things for people. Why, the paper said yesterday that you missed your train back from the Capital, just to take Mr. Blacarda to the hospital after he was so terribly hurt in the accident.”
“Oh,” said Caleb, magnanimously, “That was only because I felt kind of sorry for the poor feller.”