With a quick cry he caught her to himself again, and laid a reproving finger on her lips.
"Hush! Don't you let me hear you say that again—those horrid words! You are you, yourself, the dearest, sweetest little woman that was ever made, and I love you, and I'm going to marry you. Look down on you, indeed! I'd like to see them try it!"
"But they will. I'm only a nurse-girl."
"Hush!" He almost shook her in his wrath. "I tell you, you are you—and that's all I want to know. And that's all anybody will want to know. I'm not in love with your ancestors, or with your relatives, or your friends. I don't love you because you are, or are not, a nurse-girl, or a school-teacher, or a butterfly of fashion. I even don't love you because your eyes are blue, or because your wonderful hair is like the softest of spun gold. It's just because you are you, sweetheart; and you, just you, are the whole wide world to me!"
"But—your father?"
"He will love you because I love you. Dad is my good chum—he's always been that. What I love, he'll love. You'll see."
"Do you think he really will?" A dawning hope was coming into her eyes.
"I'm sure he will. Why, dad is the other half of myself. Always, all the way up, dad has been like that. And everything I've wanted, he's always let me have."
She drew a tremulous breath of surrender.
"Well, of course, if I thought you all wanted me—"