With a stupendous effort she faced and answered him.
"I want to know what made you ask me to marry you."
Tots did not at once reply. He sat on his perch with his back to the light, and contemplated her.
"I should have thought a clever little girl like you might have guessed that," he said at length.
This was intolerable. She felt her courage ebbing fast.
"I'm not clever," she said, a desperate quiver in her voice, "and I—I'm not good at guessing riddles."
In the silence that followed, she wondered wildly if she had made him angry at last. Then he spoke in his usual good-natured drawl, and her heart gave a great throb of relief.
"I think you're chaffin'," he said.
"I'm not," she assured him feverishly. "I'm not indeed. I always mean what I say. That is——"
"Of course," said Tots, with kindly reassurance. "I knew that. Why, my dear child, that's just what made me do it. I took a likin' to you for that very reason."