“You are not! You are not!! Oh, my darling! What a place the world is! Have I really lost you?”
Nellie smiled at him, without turning her head. “I thought you had no hope.”
He had no sense of decency, for he kissed her twice on the public highway. “I haven’t,” he answered. “I can’t stay, and you can’t go with me. Imagine you in the tropics.”
“I certainly can’t go if I’m not asked.”
“Think what you are saying to me, woman,” he answered. “In another moment I shall ask you if you love me, and then——”
She turned to him, and put her hand in his. “Suppose you do ask me,” she said.
Vickers held it, and bent his head over it, and laid it against his mouth, but he shook his head. “No,” he said, “I won’t. I have just one or two remnants of decency left, and I won’t do that.”
He stopped: for Nellie had turned the horse down an unexpected road. “Where are you going?” he said.
“Back to the house. You can’t sail without your things.”
“My dear girl, I’ve spent half my life traveling without my things.”