“Perhaps; but I owe something to myself, too.”
Miss Richardia seized upon the admission swiftly and turned it as a weapon against him. “You do, indeed! You owe it to Mr. Vance Tregarvon not to keep any of the anchors in reserve. As you once said, yourself, you are too impressionable.”
“A light o’ love,” he laughed. “I must tell Elizabeth what an eloquent special pleader she has unconsciously acquired down here in the wilds of Tennessee. What have I done that I ought not to have done?”
“I am not your conscience,” was the cool-voiced reply.
“But you are,” he retorted accusingly. “You tell me what I ought to do, and I promise to go and do it. My intentions are always good.”
“I am not sure of even that much, now. You have changed very remarkably in the past few weeks, and you must forgive me if I say that the change hasn’t been altogether for the better. You were just a nice, cheerful boy when you came to Tennessee, and you’re not that any more.”
“I have good reasons, and plenty of them,” he blurted out. “Do you want to hear them?”
“Not when you talk that way,” said Miss Birrell, and her attitude became suddenly indifferent.
“You shall hear them, whether you want to or not,” he broke in almost roughly. “I have the whole world against me on this Ocoee proposition; I have given my word to Elizabeth when I don’t love her as the man who is going to marry her ought to love her; and——”
“That is quite enough,” she interposed quietly. “It only proves what I said a minute ago. You can’t afford to hold any of your anchors in reserve. I think we had better join Mr. Carfax and the young women. Don’t you?”