"Indeed! But you'll be back here some day, eh?"
"I hope so!"
"That's good!" The Colonel smiled sympathetically, as he always did when he contemplated energetic youth, climbing the long ladder with a firm grip on each rung.
"I came to see you about another matter," Lane began hesitantly.
"Anything I can do for you?"
"Yes, sir; I want to marry your daughter,—and I'd like you to know it."
The old merchant's face became suddenly grave, the twinkle disappearing from his blue eyes. He listened thoughtfully while the young man explained himself. He was still a poor man, of course; his future was to be made. But he did not intend to remain poor. His salary was not much to offer a girl like the Colonel's daughter; but it would go far in Torso—and it was the first step. Finally he was silent, well aware that there was small possibility that he should ever be a rich man, as Colonel Price was, and that it was presumptuous of him to seek to marry his daughter, and therefore open to mean interpretation. But he felt that the Colonel was not one to impute low motives. He knew the very real democracy of the successful merchant, who never had forgotten his own story.
"What does Belle say?" the Colonel asked.
"I should not have come here if I didn't think—" the young man laughed.
"Of course!"