“A sad mixture of pronouns,” he objected. “‘It’ might, as you suggest, as well be a widow or an old maid. But why ’its’ waste of money and valuable service? That is what I shall set myself to find out. But we’ll be married first, and then I’ll be in a position to defy him, her, or it, as the case may be. And if no one ever shows up, as I half believe—— Barbara, look at me!”
She obeyed, a mutinous pucker between her fine dark brows.
“There is no use,” she murmured, “of your talking that way. I consider myself bound; and I cannot——”
His face softened as he looked at her.
“Poor little girl,” he murmured, “it’s pretty rough sledding for you, and has been all along. But I’d like to ask you one thing. Has any other man asked you to marry him since I went away?”
Her eyes fled into the distance.
“Will you tell me who it was?”
Still she was dumb, struggling to escape the sudden turmoil of her thoughts.
“Why,” she stammered at last, “should you ask?”
“Is it a case of ’how happy could I be with either, were the other fair charmer away?’” he demanded, a wrathful crimson rising to his bronzed cheeks. “You’ve played fast and loose with me always, Barbara, first it was the brat and——”