“Hush!” she cried, in mingled fright and fury. “You promised——It isn’t——”
“I made no promise except to go north because you have asked me to go. I’m going back to my job, and I’ll have the Flagg logs down if I have to smash the bottom out of the river,” he boasted, in his new pride. “Crowley—as I believe your name is—you have heard me announce the engagement. If you give this young lady another twisted look or crooked word while I’m away, may God have mercy on your soul!”
He was talking to the one man who ought to hear that news, so the lover felt, but his voice was raised in his emotion and Brophy and the loungers in the office heard, too.
Latisan kissed her once, swiftly and rapturously.
According to the code of social procedure in Adonia, as the office onlookers viewed the matter of congratulation, the occasion called for three cheers; they were proposed and given and even Brophy joined, but with sour grace.
She had endeavored ineffectually to check Latisan’s outburst, understanding fully the interlocking perils involved in the promulgation to Crowley that the drive master was going back to his work. It had become her own personal, vital affair, this thing! She was far from admitting even then that love was urging her to the promise she had made so precipitately. The wild spirit of sacrifice had surged in her. She was able to pay—to redeem! It was all for the sake of the family! But this love-cracked idiot, babbling his triumph, had thrown wide the gate of caution—had exposed all to the enemy; she feared Crowley in his surly, new mood!
Poor Ward turned to her a radiant, humid stare of devotion; she responded by flashing fury at him from her eyes. Her cheeks were crimson. “Haven’t you any wit in you?” she raged, holding her tones in leash with effort, her convulsed face close to his amazed countenance.
“It was to put you right——” he stammered.
“It has made everything all wrong!”
Men had come into the room. She hurried away from the dumfounded lover.