"You see, Morton, she's just sixteen. The age when it's more important than anything else in the world to a young girl that's been reared like her to—to have her life regular! Like all her other little school friends. She's like that, Morton. Sensitive! Don't touch her, Morton. For God's sake, don't! Some day when she's past having to care so terribly—when she's older—you can rake it up if you must torture. I'll tell her then. But for God's sake, Morton, let us live—now!"
"Hattie, you meet me to-morrow morning and take a little journey to one of these little towns around here in Jersey or Connecticut, and your lie to her won't be a lie any more."
"Morton—I—I don't understand. Why?"
"I'll marry you."
"You fool!" she said, almost meditatively. "So you've heard we've gotten on a bit. You must even have heard of this"—placing her hand over the jar of the Brown Cold Cream. "You want to be in at the feast. You're so easy to read that I can tell you what you're after before you can get the coward words out. Marry you! You fool!"
It was as if she could not flip the word off scornfully enough, sucking back her lower lip, then hurling.
"Well, Hattie," he said, unbunching his soft hat, "I reckon that's pretty plain."
"I reckon it is, Morton."
"All right. Everybody to his own notion of carryin' a grudge to the grave. But it's all right, honey. No hard feelin's. It's something to know I was willin' to do the right thing. There's a fruit steamer out of here for N'Orleans in the mawnin'. Reckon I'll catch it."
"I'd advise you to."