“You’ve threatened that so often.”
He admitted it. “I know. It takes an earthquake to shift some folks, and I reckon I’m one of them. I stay where I’m set.” And his tone implied that conservatism was an admirable virtue.
Madge did not think so. “That’s what my mother says of you,” she observed, a trifle tartly.
“It’s no lie, either,” he placidly agreed. “Seems to me,” he went on, with a look, ardent but appealing, at Madge, “that there’s only one thing will flit me from Mrs. Whitehead’s. You couldn’t give a guess at it, could you?”
“Yes, I could,” said Madge brazenly. After all, she was Anne’s daughter, and direct. Then, despite herself, she fenced coyly: “You’re leaving the town, I reckon, Mr. Chappie.”
He stood aghast at the revolutionary thought. “Nay,” he said earnestly. “I’m set here and I’ll not leave willing. There’s something to keep me where I am.”
“Your job’s not worth so much,” she said, misunderstanding wilfully.
“It’s steady, though,” he defended it, “and a growing trade. My master’s getting a lot of window-cleaning contracts all over the town. But it’s not my job that keeps me here. It’s———” He dropped his cap and fumbled for it nervously, somehow finding a sort of courage in the act, so that when he rose he faced her with a spirit which was, for him, quite debonair. “Now, you’ll not stop me, will you? I’ve come on purpose to get this off my chest and I’ve worked myself up to a point. I’m a bit slow at most things and I’m easily put off, so I’ll ask you to give my humble request a patient hearing.”
Madge looked at him acutely, and decided that his resolution was strong enough to survive something that she very much wanted to say. “I’d rather this didn’t come straight on top of a row with your landlady,” she said.
“Aye,” he agreed, “I can see your meaning, but it’s that that roused me to point. Love’s like a pan of soup with me. It’s got to seethe a while before it boils. But I’m boiling now, and I’m here to tell you so. I’ve loved you since I saw you, Madge. After Sunday School one day it was, with a wind on that blew the bonny curls across your eyes. I always fancied gold and you’re gold twice over.” Madge was deeply moved at this idealization of her hair. She had been made more peevishly conscious of its redness than ever by the unsparing comments of the weaving-shed, but she did not see wherein she was gold twice over until he explained it. “I didn’t notice that the first day. I only saw your hair. I hadn’t the nerve to come close enough to see the colour of your eyes. But when I did, and found them all gold-brown as well, that finished me. I was deep in love to the top of my head. Drowned in it, you might say.”