“When I’m going to marry a man it isn’t right to forbid me seeing him.”
“You’re not going to marry him; you’re going to marry Gale, and the quicker you make up your mind to it the better.”
“You might better tell me I am going to marry Bull Page––I would marry him first. I will never marry Gale Morgan in the living world, and I’ve told you so more than once.”
He regarded his niece a moment wrathfully and, without replying, walked back to the house. Nan, upset but resolute, went on to the barn and 297 asked Pardaloe to saddle her pony. Pardaloe shuffled around in an obliging way, but at the end of some evasion admitted he had orders not to do it. Nan flamed at the information. She disliked Pardaloe anyway, not for any reason she could assign beyond the fact that he had once been a chum of Gale’s. But she was too high-spirited to dispute with him, and returned to the house pink with indignation. Going straight to her uncle, she protested against such tyranny. Duke was insensible alike to her pleas and her threats.
But next morning Nan was up at three o’clock. She made her way into the barn before a soul was stirring, and at daybreak was well on her way to Sleepy Cat. She telephoned to de Spain’s office from the hospital and went to breakfast. De Spain joined her before she had finished, and when they left the dining-room she explained why she had disappointed him the day before. He heard the story with misgivings.
“I’ll tell you how it looks to me, Nan,” he said when she had done. “You are like a person that’s being bound tighter every day by invisible cords. You don’t see them because you are fearless. You are too fearless, Nan,” he added, with apprehension reflected in the expression of his face. “I’ll tell you what I wish you’d do, and I say it knowing you won’t do it,” he concluded.
She made light of his fears, twisting his right hand till it was helpless in her two hands and laughing at him. “How do you know I won’t do it?”
“Because I’ve asked you before. This is it: marry me, now, here, to-day, and don’t take any more chances out there.”
“But, Henry,” protested Nan, “I can’t marry you now and just run away from poor Uncle Duke. If you will just be patient, I’ll bring him around to our side.”