"We were up there on the mountain," said Johnny more lucidly. "We'd lost the others—no fault of ours, Barry—you needn't look like a movie censor—and we found we'd got to make a night of it. We were just worn out and going in circles. And she—I give you my word I didn't do one gosh-darned thing, but that girl just naturally took on and raved about wanting me to marry her and blew me up when I said I hadn't asked her and then—then—when I tried to get shelter in a little old shack we'd stumbled on she just up and bolted. She——"
His words died away. His eyes dropped before the blaze that met them.
Very slowly Barry formulated his feelings.
"You—infernal——"
"Hold on there, I'm not any such thing."
Through the bluster of Johnny's rally a really injured innocence made its outcry. "She had no more reason to bolt than a—a grandmother." Grandmothers appeared to be Johnny's sole figure of comparison. "You're getting this dead wrong, Barry. . . . Look here, what do you take me for?"
"That's a large question," said Barry slowly. But his tone was milder though far from reassuring. "But do you tell me that she asked you to marry her?"
"I do. She did. Just like that—out of a clear sky."
"But what was the reason——"
"There wasn't a reason, I give you my word, Barry."