"And trample me," he answered absently.
"That's because you're alone too much," she said with a look of tactful sympathy.
"Precisely," he replied. "But how am I to prevent that?"
"Marry, of course," she retorted, smiling gaily up at him, letting her heart just peep from her eyes.
"Thank you! And it sounds so easy! May I ask why you've refused to take your own medicine—you who say you are so often blue?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I've always suspected the men who asked me. They were—" She did not finish what she feared might be an unwise, repelling remark in the circumstances.
"They were after your money," he finished for her.
She nodded. "They were Europeans," she explained. "Europeans want money when they marry."
"That's another of the curses of riches," he said judicially. "And if you marry a rich man over here, you may be pretty sure he'll marry you for your money. I've observed that rich men attach an exaggerated importance to money, always."
"I'd prefer to marry a poor man," she hastened to answer, her heart beating faster—certainly his warning against rich suitors must have been designed to help his own cause with her.