“That’s it. I’ve never been engaged to a burglar before!”
“But you have been engaged?”
“Oh, yes. Lots of times. But not like this. This feels as if it might lead—”
“To the altar?” Satirically.
“Yes.”
“But suppose I got caught?—that is, if I really enjoyed the distinction of being a burglar which I am not?”
“Then, of course, I never knew—you deceived me—poor innocent!—as well as the rest of the world. And there would be columns and columns in the papers. And some people would pity me, but most people would envy me. And I’d visit you in jail with a handkerchief to my eyes and be snap-shotted that way. And I’d sit in a dark corner in the court, looking pale and interesting. And the lady reporters would interview me and they’d publish my picture with yours—‘Handsome Bob, the swell society yeggman. Member of one of the oldest families, etc.’ And—and—”
“Great Scott!” cried Bob. She had that publicity-bee worse than Gee-gee. In another moment she’d be setting the day. “Shall we—ah!—retrace our steps?”
It was getting late. The hours had gone by somehow and as she offered no objections, they “retraced.” For some time now she was silent. Perhaps she was imagining herself too happy for words. Once or twice she cast a sidelong glance shyly at Bob. It was the look of a capricious slave-owner metamorphosed, through the power of love, into a yielding and dependent young maiden. Bob was supposed to be the brutal conqueror. Meanwhile that young man strode along unheedingly. He didn’t mind any little branches or bushes that happened to stand in his way and plowed right through them. It would have been the same, if he had met that historic bramble bush. A thousand scratches, more or less, wouldn’t count.
“You can put your arm around me now,” she observed, with another musical but detestable giggle, as they passed through a grove, not very far from the house. “It is quite customary here, you know.”