“We—we are talking of troubles,” she protested.
Bill replaced his hat, and restored his handkerchief to its pocket.
“Troubles? Troubles? Isn’t that trouble enough to start with? It’s—it’s the root of it all,” he declared. “I’m—I’m just crazy about you. And every time I try to think about Charlie and the police, and—and the scallywags of the valley, I—I find you mixed up with it all, and get so tangled up that I don’t know where I am, or—or why. Say, have you ever been crazy about anybody? Some feller, for instance? It’s the worst worrying muddle ever happened. First you’re pleased—then you cuss them. Then you sort of sit dreaming all sorts of fool things that haven’t any sense at all. Then you want to make rhymes and things about eyes, and flowers, and moons, and feet, and laces and bits. You feel all over that everything else has got no sense to it, and is just so much waste of time thinking about it. You sort of feel that all men are fools but yourself, and other females aren’t women, but just images. You sort of get the notion the world’s on a pivot, and that pivot’s just yourself, and if you weren’t there there’d be a bust up, and most everything would get chasing glory, and you don’t care a darn, anyway, if they did. Say, when you get clean crazy about anybody, same as I am about you, you find yourself hating everybody that comes near them. You get notions that every man is conspiring to tell the girl what a perfect fool you are, that they’re worrying to boost you right out with her. You hate her, because you think she thinks you are a simpleton, and can’t see your good points, which are so obvious to yourself. You hate yourself, you hate life, you hate the sunlight and the trees, and your food, and—and everything. And you wouldn’t have things different, or stop making such a fool of yourself, no—not if hell froze over. Will—will you marry me?”
Helen’s humor suddenly burst the bonds of all restraint. She sat there laughing until she nearly choked.
Bill waited with a patience that seemed inexhaustible. Then, as the girl’s mirth began to lessen, he put his question again with dogged persistence.
“Will you marry me?”
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Of all the——”
“Will you marry me?” the man persisted, his great face flushing.
Helen abruptly sobered. The masterful tone somehow sent a delighted thrill through her nerves.
She nodded.