"You may be right," I said, with the utmost gravity, "but I did it only in justice to you. You were talking, true enough, but in your sleep; saying things that—well, no gentleman could have remained awake, in the circumstances."
"I didn't," she cried, darting me a look of uncertainty. "Echochee says I never do!"
"Echochee wasn't here last night," I casually replied, poking the coals of her fire closer. "I hope you understand that I didn't listen intentionally; for, of course, you'd never have told me all those things——"
"Stop it," she commanded; and, when I had stopped, there was an ominous silence.
But I would not look at her and indifferently pretended to be busy. I confess that I was deriving a purely masculine enjoyment out of this, and intended to push my counter bluff so vigorously that she would be driven to admit her own. Therefore, after I thought the silence had become sufficiently impressive, I yielded to an impulse that many men find irresistible—I made an egregious ass of myself.
"Lots of people," said I, sliding out upon thin ice with the braggadocio of him who rocks the boat, "chatter like magpies when dozing in an uncomfortable position. Police recognize this, and often arrange a suspect's cell so he'll have to sleep sitting up, then they listen and take down his inmost thoughts. That's the way you chattered last night."
"Chattered!" she caught her breath.
"Yes; just rippled along, you know, telling everything you've been thinking these last couple of days. Some of it was rather interesting. Shall I poke up the fire again?"
"Rather interesting!" She sprang around and faced me with blazing eyes, the picture of embarrassment and fury. "You consider the things I've been thinking the last couple of days 'rather interesting!' Oh," she cried, dashing the pan of corn meal batter to the ground, "you're damnable—I hate you!" There was a whirl of a skirt, the twinkle of a little booted foot, and, by Jove, she had gone flying off like the wind; while I, feeling about the size of a june-bug, stood first on one leg and then the other, wondering what the devil she had been thinking these last couple of days.
Now, when a fellow has made a blatant ass of himself, I hold that the quickest road to salvation is "own up and shut up." If he's forgiven, life may flow on as formerly. If he isn't, he has recourse to the pose of having been grossly misunderstood, and eventually work himself into quite a creditable reproduction of a martyred nobleman. If he's good at that kind of thing, a girl will grow sorry and forgive him in spite of herself. I got this from Tommy, one day, and Tommy knows a lot about women—really, an awful lot.