"I'll forgive you if you'll take it all back, hide, hoofs and horns, for ever 'n ever, amen."
"I take it back. I never meant it."
"Then may one ask why—"
"Oh, James, I don't know why."
Anybody could have told them that it was only a phase of feminine panic in the face of the unknown, necessary as sneezing. But, as Jim said, it didn't matter.
"Never mind. Only I don't want you to marry me because you found me here all bluggy and pitied me."
"James! To talk like that! You know it wasn't—"
"Then, what was it?" Jim, suddenly grown serpent-like in craft, turned his well-known ingenuous and innocent expression upon her.
"The moment you left me, up there in the pine grove, I knew I couldn't do without you."
"How did you know?"