Sam was efficaciously startled into wakefulness. He became very pale, and fixed Bela with a kind of angry glare. It seemed to him like a horrible burlesque of something sacred. He hated her for allowing it. He did not reflect that she might not have been able to prevent it. She did not look at him.
"Do I understand right?" he said stiffly. "You're all proposing to her in a body?"
"That's right," said Jack. "And out of goodness of heart she gives you a chance, too."
Sam's jaw snapped together, and his mouth became a hard line.
"Much obliged," he said. "I resign my chance. I'm not looking for a wife." He went back into the house.
It was not what the other men expected to hear. Suspecting an insult to the object of their own desires, they turned on him angrily. They would never have allowed him to have her, but neither should he turn her down.
"And a good thing for you, too!" cried Joe.
"By George, I've a good mind to thrash him for that!" muttered Jack.
His attention was attracted in the other direction by a laugh from Bela. It had anything but a merry sound, but their ears were not sharp enough to detect the lack. Bela's nostrils were dilated, and her lip oddly turned back. But she laughed.