"She will have me," he said gently, but firmly. He blushed a little, but the girlish blushes that this young man went in for never seemed to make the faintest difference to his cheek—in another sense. "She'll have me. I know that."
"How do you know that?" I retorted, sitting there on that sack, and hardly knowing whether I were more glad on Elizabeth's account, or more indignant or more puzzled by this young man of hers.
He answered: "I know, because I know the—er—the kind of man I am myself." ... Here he looked up, shyly, from that wheel, and said, "Miss Matthews, you think I'm—er—the last word in fatuous conceit."
I was thinking so. How could I help it after what he had just said?
"Er—I'd hate you to think that. You are her pal. I—er—owe you an explanation. Please forgive me if I talk to you for a bit just about myself——"
I put in "That's a thing all men do."
"Yes. But—er—all men don't ask you to forgive them first, do they?" he said very quickly. "Generally they yarn on and on and on, imagining a woman must be jolly interested to hear it. They don't realize that the woman (unless she happens to be wildly in love with them), the woman's—er—mostly thinking of something miles away all the time!"
I couldn't help smiling. To hear a man himself say such a thing! It sounded more like something Elizabeth herself might give out.
He said, "You have forgiven me? Well, I'll tell you why I know Miss Weare will have me. If she were not attracted enough for that, I should not be attracted. You see I am talking—er—quite frankly; no camouflage at all. Unless a girl liked me, I shouldn't begin to seek her. Not after the first look. I must be liked," he said very simply and with that blush, but very definitely, "I must feel that I am wanted."
He seemed to me extraordinary, from what I knew of men. I said, "But, Colonel Fielding, men always prefer a girl who doesn't seem to want to have anything to say to them! They say men want the chase!"