"Pretended? I didn't pretend!" indignantly.
"You said I looked 'uncommonly fit'."
"So you did,—so you do."
"And who cares? What's the good of it? If it signified a jot to any single human being how I looked——"
"Leo! you know I care!"
She had done it, she had provoked it. If she had taken a chisel in her hand and dug out the admission by bodily force, she could not have been more directly responsible than she now was—and yet she stopped short startled.
It was but for a moment however. "You?" she cried, "you could hardly say less than that, considering it was such a direct fish for a compliment,—no,—no, Val; do be quiet and let me speak,—what I mean is that really, really, you know, I am most awfully down in my luck, and I don't see the slightest prospect of anything better. I had hoped that somehow a way would open——"
"It would, if you would marry me."
"Marry you? Nonsense!"
"Good gracious, Leo! Nonsense?"