There was irritation in his voice as he said:
"Then it doesn't matter to you whether I come with you or not?"
Her reply was soft. She suddenly put out her hand and took his.
"Of course it matters. We're friends. The best friend I'm likely to find, I reckon. What would I be meeting you for all these months if I didn't care for you? Just to be admiring the scenery?--shouldn't like."
She laughed softly.
She went on: "I'm ready to go with you or without you. If we go together I'm independent, just as though I went without you. I'm independent of every one--father and you and all. I'll marry you if you want me, or I'll live with you without marrying, or I'll live without you and never see you again. I won't say that leaving you wouldn't hurt. It would, after being with you all these weeks; but I'd rather be hurt than be dependent."
He held her hand tightly between his two.
"Folks 'ud say," she went on, "that I had no right to be talkin' of going away with you--that I'd be ruining your future and making people look down on you, and all that. Well, that's for you to say. If you think it harms your prospects being with me you needn't see me. I've my own prospects to think of. I'm not going to have any man ashamed of me."
"You're right to speak of it, and we're right to think of it," said Falk. "It isn't my prospects that I've got to think about, but it's my father I wouldn't like to hurt. If we go away together there'll be a great deal of talk here, and it will all fall on my father."
"Well, then," she said, tossing her head and taking her hand away from his, "don't come. I'm not asking you. As for your father, he's that proud----" She stopped suddenly. "No. I'm saying nothing about that. You care for him, and you're right to. As far as that goes, we needn't go together; you can come up later and join me."