“And is it a tragedy ye would have him make it?”
“Would it be a tragedy to take a tinker ‘for better—for worse’?”
“Faith! that would depend on the tinker.”
“Oh-ho, so it’s up to the tinker, is it? Well, the tinker will prove it otherwise; he will guarantee to keep the play running pure comedy to the end. So that settles it, Miss Patricia O’Connell—alias Rosalind, alias the cook—alias Patsy—the best little comrade a lonely man ever found. I am going to marry you the day after to-morrow, right here in Arden.”
Patsy looked at him long and thoughtfully from under the beguiling shadow of the white chiffon, corn-flower sunbonnet. “’Tis a shame, just, to discourage anything so brave as a self-made—tinker. But I’ll not be here the day after to-morrow. And what’s more, a man is a fool to marry any woman because he’s lonely and she can cook.”
The tinker’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t know. A man might marry for worse reasons.” Then he grew suddenly sober and his eyes looked deep into hers. “But you know and I know that that is not my reason for wanting you, or yours for taking me.”
“I didn’t say I would take ye.” This time it was Patsy’s eyes that twinkled. “Do ye think it would be so easy to give up my career—the big success I’ve hoped and worked and waited for—just—just for a tinker? I’d be a fool to think of it.” She was smiling inwardly at her own power of speech, which made what she held as naught sound of such immeasurable consequence.
But the tinker smiled outwardly. “Where did you say you were going to be the day after to-morrow?”
“That’s another thing I did not say. If ye are going to marry me ’tis your business to find me.” She freed her hands and started off without a backward glance at him.