“A-cryin’ the two eyes out av her head. Bad cess to ye fer that, too! If I was a man, throoper er no throoper, I’d thrash ye fer that, so I would.”
“I’ll just go in and see her.”
He laughed, pushed past the portly form of Mrs. McGee, and then went along the hall until he came to a large room at its farther end.
The girl was in this room, and had lighted the lamp. She stared at him with flushing face as he came in.
“I don’t think I requested your presence,” she said coldly.
“No, but Mrs. McGee told me you were pining for a little comforting, and so I thought I’d call, since I haven’t ceased to regard you in a favorable light, you know. It was only last week, I believe, that I offered you my hand and my heart.”
She turned from him and walked toward the window, and looked out from it across the parade ground.
As she did this his admiration of her sprang full-armed into being again. “Gad, what a girl!” he thought. “Isn’t she a queen? A man could feel proud to have her for his wife.”
“I have come to apologize for what has perhaps seemed to you unnecessary harshness,” he said, in a voice wholly changed, for now it had a sincere ring, and his admiration looked from his eyes.
“It was unnecessary,” she said. “What do you intend to do with me? I have done nothing, and Mr. Stevens has done nothing!”