CHAPTER IX
[PALMER HAS A VISITOR]
Eight—nine—ten—eleven— The little clock on the mantel chimed the hour musically and significantly, and Palmer jumped quickly to his feet, pulling out his watch as he did so for confirmation. Then, with a laugh and a shake of his head, he thrust it back into his pocket again.
"No use, May," he said; "I've lost track of an hour somewhere, and it doesn't seem to be the clock's fault. I suppose I'll have to blame you instead."
May Sinclair smiled. "I find, Harry," she said slowly, "that being engaged makes awfully irresponsible creatures of us. You wouldn't think that it would change people who ought to have arrived at years of discretion so that they act and talk and feel in a way their common sense tells them is ridiculous, and yet a way so pleasant that they wouldn't have it different if they could. I find my most settled tastes, habits, plans, everything, all completely changed. And I guess, Harry, you find it a good deal the same way, too."
She had risen as she spoke, and stood beside him, slender, delicate, womanly, altogether charming. With no assumption of coquetry, she laid a detaining hand on his arm, and raised her brown eyes wistfully to his.
"I don't want you to go yet," she whispered. "You can stay till half-past eleven, Harry. Honestly, I'm not a bit tired to-night."
Palmer stooped and kissed her. "Mustn't try to tempt me, May," he answered, "after you've got doctor's orders to take things easy and have plenty of rest. If you'd only give up your beloved settlement work, then it would be a different thing altogether. You wait till we're married, and I'll make you give it up, whether or no. You'll find I'm enough to reform, without your having to bother your head with those bums from the slums. Gad, May, how's that? One of these regular eppy—what-you-may-call-'ems—Bums from the slums; really, now, I call that rather clever."
The girl shook with laughter. "Oh, Harry, Harry," she cried, "your sense of humor will certainly kill me some day. It's so very—well, obvious—to say the least. But—" and she drew closer to him—"I love you, dear, in spite of it."
Palmer slipped his arm around the girl's slender waist, and kissed her again and again. "You don't know, May," he whispered, "what it means to me to hear you say that. It makes me feel awfully proud, and yet at the same time, you know, it makes me feel awfully ashamed of myself, too. I never ought to have dared to ask you to marry me in the first place, May. That's the whole trouble. You're a million times too good for me. Sometimes, you know, I get to thinking lately I'm a deuced poor sort of a chap, after all."