"But heavens, Pert; how lonesome I 've been without you, away at your school all these months. It seems so good to see you here that I can scarcely believe my eyes."
"I 'm glad to be back on some accounts, although it grows horribly stupid here."
"Stupid, Pert! It wouldn't seem stupid to me on a desert island, if you were there."
"I should n't care to try it."
"Pert, dear," Arthur's voice grew tender, "I want to say a few words to you seriously, and I beg of you to listen seriously. We are children no longer, little girl. You have finished with school, and I have practically assumed control of father's business. I have no new story to tell you, but you know that I love you and long for you now as I have loved and longed for you for years.
"You have been my good angel, Pert. It has been my love for you and your influence over me alone that has kept me steadfast during hours of terrible temptation. You know I 'm not naturally vicious, Pert; I must have inherited this appetite I have had to fight so hard against. But I am overcoming it—I 'll conquer it, Pert; and with you to be with me to love me and help me, I 'll make a good man. I 'll make a place and a name in the world. But I need you, darling—I love you, and I 'd rather die than live without you. We 'll sell out this business, leave this place, and go back to the East and civilization to live, where there 's something to see and to do. You shall have everything, anything, dear, that your heart desires—only say that you love me." And bending nearer, he sought to draw her to him in a passionate embrace.
Pert did not move from her position in the hammock; but firmly resisted his endeavor, and, taking his arm from around her waist, simply handed it back to him, as it were. (A maneuvre upon a girl's part more aggravating, en passant, than any other one thing she can do.)
"I am sorry," she said, as Arthur still sat in the hammock beside her, silent and downcast—"I 'm dreadfully sorry, Arthur, that you should have brought this matter up again. We have been such friends so many years, and you are such a good friend, when you are only a friend. I hate to wound you, if, indeed, you care for me as you say you do; but I do n't love you, Arthur, in the way you would have me, and I know I never shall. It's best that I should tell you this plainly, and I know you will be glad of it in the end. I am not the girl you think me, Arthur. You do n't know me as I really am. If you did you 'd be glad to have escaped so luckily. I always try to make a good impression, but really I am willful, selfish and discontented. You would be awfully sorry when it was too late. Believe me, I am telling the truth. So let's never talk about this any more, but be the good friends we have always been."
Arthur jumped up impatiently. "You are trifling with me, as you always do," he said, with a savage ring in his voice. "I do n't care what your faults are. I want you, just as you are, to be my wife. Care for you as I say I do! I have loved you since we were children together. I have never cared for any one else. My every thought has been for your happiness. I have never spared trouble, time or money in doing what I thought would please you—and why do you suppose I 've done so? for fun? for glory? for something to pass away time? I tell you, Pert, I 'm getting mighty tired of this kind of foolishness. You and I are fitted for each other by reason of natural situation, if nothing else. What other man is there around here who is anywhere near your equal, socially? What kind of a life will you lead cooped up on this hillside farm as the years go by?—a living death, only think of it!
"Your father is willing, anxious, that you should be married and safely provided for—I have talked with him; he has told me so. My father simply worships you, and nothing on earth would please him so much as to have you for a daughter-in-law."