"And to think I didn't even know you were there. I'd forgotten it, but I remember now the General told me I made a spectacle of myself."
"Well, I always liked a spectacle, it's in my blood. I like a man, too, who does things as if he didn't care whether anybody was looking at him or not—and that's you, Ben."
"It's not my business to shatter your ideals," I answered, and the next minute, "O Sally, how is it to end?"
"That depends, doesn't it," she asked, "whether you want to marry me or my maiden aunts?"
"Do you mean that you will marry me?"
"I mean, Ben, that if you aren't so obliging as to marry me, I'll pine away and die a lovelorn death."
"Be serious, Sally."
"Could anything on earth be more serious than a lovelorn death?"
I would have caught her back to my breast, but eluding my arms, she stood poised like the fleeting-spirit of gaiety in the little path.
"Will you promise to marry me, Ben Starr?" she asked.