“Please listen!” she pleaded. There was a sound like suppressed sobbing.
“What is it?” he ventured, and he listened, greatly perturbed. The muffled voice sounded very meek and plaintive: “I’ll try to do my part, Mr. Blake,–really I will! I–I hope we can manage to struggle along–somehow. You know, I have a little of my own. It’s only three–three million; but–”
“What!” he demanded, and he held her out at arm’s length, to stare at her in frowning bewilderment. “If I’d known that, I’d–”
“You’d never have given me a chance to–to propose to you, you dear old silly!” she cried, her eyes dancing with tender mirth. “See here!”
She turned from him, and back again, and held up a withered, crumpled flower. He looked, and saw that it was the amaryllis blossom.
“You–kept it!”
“Because–because, even then, down in the bottom of my heart, I had begun to realize–to know what you were like–and of course that meant– Tom, tell me! Do you think I’m utterly shameless? Do you blame me for being the one to–to–”
“Blame you!” he cried. He paused to put a finger under her chin and raise her down-bent face. His eyes were very blue, but there was a twinkle in their depths. “Oh, yes; it was dreadful, wasn’t it? But I guess I’ve no complaint to file just now.”
THE END