“But—”
“Now wait, Swickey.—Then if we should get married and I saw my ring on your finger, and—and they were Mendelssohning us out of church, with two little pink toodles carrying your train and the bunch at the door plugging celestial cereal at us, as we honk-honked for the two-thirty train to—to heaven, then I’d have a fortune—you. Certified and payable to bearer, so to speak.”
Swickey stared at him unsmilingly. Presently she said, “Wouldn’t it mean any more to you than that?”
“Well, wouldn’t that be enough?” he replied earnestly.
“But you always seem to be making fun of everything and everybody, even when you try to be serious.”
“I know it. Can’t help it, Swickey dear. But I wasn’t entirely fooling then.”
“But you’d never ask me to marry you,” she said calmly.
“Ask you?” he said, with sudden vehemence. “Ask you? Why, can’t you see? I’ve wanted to ask you a hundred times this summer. If I hadn’t thought Davy was—”
“Dave? I hate Dave!”
Bascomb, misinterpreting the passion that lay behind her words, took them literally, blindly following the current of his desire.