She shook her head, not trusting speech.
"Vell, then, listen here," he pursued. "If your old man gets gay, chust remember that. You ain't treated righd at home, the best of times. You said so yourself. Un' this here jay town's no place for a pretty young lady like you, anyvays. So, if there's any trouble, you come for me, und I'll get you avay from here."
The girl thrilled with a delicious sense of adventure. She trembled with the foretaste of a new delight. The passing praise of her looks and of her newly acquired maturity, a novel sound in her ears, was not lost upon her; but even that was dwarfed by the tenor of her companion's words, and the wonderful current that ran from his hands to hers. Was this what had been meant, that truant afternoon, by the calling birds, the leafing trees and the poignant air along the river? Was this what young women felt when lovers told their love? She could not have formulated the questions, but her heart asked them, and Max, meanwhile, was repeating:
"I'll get you avay from here!"
"How—how could you do it?" she gasped.
"It'd be dead easy. If there's any scrap, you vatch your chanc't un' give the house the slip. I'll be vaitin' at the hotel till midnight. Delephone me from the nearest drugstore, un' ve'll take a trolley down the line un' catch a train to N'York un' be married there this same nighd. I've a friend who's a minister un' vill get out of his bed any hour I'd ask him."
He pressed her hands tighter, and, as he leaned against the tree, drew her slightly toward him.
But Mary, though she did not know why, still fearful, held back.
"I—we couldn't do that," she said.
"Vhy not?" he demanded.