"He would!" Joe was rather scornful of Mr. Bill's thought. "He hasn't sense enough to see that thrones are nothing but targets now. It may have been all right in the old days to have kings and queens, Tessie, I'm not questioning the past, I'm too busy with the present and the future, but it isn't all right now. The people don't need them. You shouldn't be proud and happy to be a queen. You should be angry and indignant!"
"Why, Joe Cary!" There was no doubt that she was indignant and angry, but it was not because she was a queen. "How can you talk like that? The idea! The very idea! I asked you to help me and if you only insult me—" She turned away so that he would not see the tears which filled her eyes.
"Oh, Tessie! Silly little girl!" His arm was around her. "I wouldn't hurt you for the world, but I have to tell you the truth. I can't lie to you the way other people do! I can't do it! I think so much of you, little Tessie! I hate to have you even play you are a queen!"
She pulled herself free and stared at him. "Play!" she cried furiously. "Play! I am a queen, Joe Cary, and you know it! Just because I've known you for years and years is no reason why you—you—" She was so angry that she could not say another word. She could not look at him either for the tears overflowed her eyes. "I wish you'd go!" she managed to stammer.
Joe never thought of going. He had a shamed sort of feeling as if he had broken a little girl's doll, and he took Tessie in his arms again and kissed the tears from her soft cheeks.
"Tessie!" he murmured. "Little Tessie!"
She could feel the hard beat of his heart under her head. She had never supposed a man's heart would beat like that. Her own heart often thumped more madly, but a man's heart was different. She pushed him away. Joe Cary need not think that he could say the things he had said to her and then kiss her and expect her to forget his hard words. How dared he kiss her when he talked as he did! She was a queen! She was! And men didn't kiss queens! Men had been killed for less than Joe had done.
"Joe Cary," she began angrily, but he would not let her say another word. He closed her lips with the palm of his hand.
"Give it up, Tessie," he said breathlessly, swept from his feet by the soft sweetness of her lips. "Give up this ridiculous fairy tale and——"