A flattering, smiling, jilting throng!
Oh, by my soul! I burn with shame
To think I’ve been your slave so long!
Away, away! Your smile’s a curse;
Oh! blot me from the race of men,
Kind, pitying Heaven, by death or worse,
Before I love such things again.”
And as he walks quickly along, smoking the cigar which he has lighted, he thinks, amusedly, that the girl’s resolve to marry him is like the old quotation of counting chickens before they are hatched; for he has not as yet asked her hand in marriage—that marriage which is so distasteful to both of them—and then he falls to abusing the will which would tie them together for life—two who had not the slightest affection for each other.
He wondered, as he smoked, what Jess would think if she knew that he was the obnoxious person whom that will had dealt with. He regarded her with a glance of keen scrutiny as she hurried down the walk and up to the rustic bench where he was seated an hour later.
“I—I want to ask you a question, Mr. Moore!” she cried, breathlessly. “Will you answer it?”