"Don't ask that, Miss Cora." He could have bitten out his tongue almost before the words had slipped from it.
But Miss Cora was not going to be sidetracked at this critical moment by a matter so trivial as Mr. Harper's upbringing.
"You take away a straight girl's reputation, you as good as ruin her, and then you come and ask her what you should do about it. What ho, she bumps!" And Miss Dobbs, with an irrelevance fully equal to her final remark, suddenly flung herself down to the further detriment of the broken-springed sofa.
Mr. Harper, however, was able to recognize this as a cry of the soul of a lady in agony.
"If you think I ought to marry you," he said, with dry lips, "I'll do it."
Miss Dobbs, flopping on the sofa, sat up suddenly with a complete change of manner.
"It's not what I think, Mr. Harper," she said. "That don't matter. It's what you think that matters. If a man is a gentleman, he don't ask those sort of things."
"No, I suppose he doesn't," said Mr. Harper, who suddenly felt and saw the great force of this. "Miss Dobbs ... Cora.... I ... I ... will you marry me, Miss Cora?"
The answer of Miss Cora was to rise from the sofa in the stress of feminine embarrassment. But she did not fall into his arms, as some ladies might have done; she did not even change color. She merely said in an extremely practical voice—
"Harry, you've done right, and I'm glad you've acted the toff. There was those who said you wouldn't, but we'll not mention names. However, all's well that ends well. And the sooner we get married the better."