“I’ve always been afraid of matrimony, too,” said Margaret, with a quick flush. “I want my own life, all my own.”
“But what you say is right, dead right,” said Elliott, after a reflective pause that lasted for several minutes. “It’s just what my own conscience has been telling me.” He stopped to meditate again.
“I’ll tell you what I think I’ll do,” he proceeded, at last. “I’ll go over to Omaha and look for a job on one of the dailies there. I expect I can get it, and it’ll give me time to think over my plans.
“You’re not going East till fall, and I can run across here often, so that I’ll be able to see you. I may go East this fall myself. You’ve just crystallized what I’ve been thinking. I will do something to surprise you, and I’ll make a fortune with it. Will you shake hands on it?”
She pulled off the riding-gauntlet and put out her hand, meeting his eyes squarely. The deep flush still lingered in her cheeks.
“We are good friends,” he exclaimed, feeling a desire to say something, he scarcely knew what.
“The very best!” said Margaret, looking bright-eyed at him. “I hope we always will be. Come,” she cried, pulling her hand away. “The storm’s over. Let’s go back.”
The rain had made the road very sticky, and they rode slowly side by side, while Margaret chattered vivaciously of her own future, of her music, of the coming winter in the East. She was full of plans, and Elliott sunk his own perplexities to share in her enthusiasm. He was himself imbued with the cheerfulness that comes of good resolutions, whose difficulties are yet untried.
“When are you going to Omaha?” she asked him, as he left her at the gate.
“In a couple of days. I’ll see you, of course, before I go.”