“Of what?” he demanded. “Of me?”
She did not answer, and again he cut the horse impatiently with his keen whip-lash, holding the spirited creature with a strong grasp on the reins as he did so.
“Well,” he said, after a long silence, “I’m afraid I can’t make myself over, even for you. But I’ll tell you something, my girl, there are worse men in the world than Stephen Jarvis, and perhaps you’ll fall in with some of ’em, if you turn me down. Look at me, will you?”
Unwillingly she turned her face to his.
“I shall not take a silly no for an answer,” he said under his breath. “I never have, and I shan’t begin with you. I need you, and you need me.”
His eyes held her powerfully.
“Do you love another man?”
“No,” said Barbara faintly. She could not bring herself to uncover her one dead love before those pitiless eyes, while the meadow-larks were calling and answering with such piercing sweetness. David Whitcomb was dead. If she had ever loved him it was as another self in a dim past, growing ever dimmer.
“Then,” said the Honorable Stephen Jarvis quietly, “you will marry me.” He broke into a short laugh. “Do you know I couldn’t bear to think of your loving another man? Is that being in love? Tell me, Barbara.”
He laughed again softly, as he bent to peer into her averted face. She felt herself yielding, her weak hold on past and future loosening.