"No," he answered; "unless you mean to send me away to the ends of the earth without a shred of hope. You cannot do that."
"I think you are taking advantage of me," she protested, but quite meekly and diffidently for Annie. "I have never been even civil to you till Tom Robinson was in danger, and then I had to put all my private feelings aside on his account. Before that I was more than rude."
"And you are a little sorry now? Confess it, Annie, when I am going off all alone, so far as old friends are concerned, to Central Africa, at your bidding."
"Not at my bidding," she declared hastily; "it is too bad of you to say so."
"And you are going to be far kinder in the end than in the beginning," he persisted. "You are going to say, 'Harry Ironside, if you ever come back, whether it is to stay or to go out again to your colony, you will find me waiting for you as your earthly reward.'"
"Of course you will come back," she exclaimed vehemently, thrown off her guard; "but you had much better wait and look out for some more gracious person to welcome you."
"I don't care for gracious persons," said the foolish fellow scornfully; "that is, for persons who are always gracious whether they like or dislike their company. But I say," he went on, in an eager boyish way, which was not unbecoming or inharmonious where his young manhood was concerned, only natural and pleasant, "I should care for the best and brightest and bonniest woman in the world being gracious to me; I would give much to make her like me, though I know I am far behind her in cleverness and goodness."
"Nonsense," cried Annie, quite testily. "I shall be used up in hospital service by that time," she remonstrated, keeping to the far future. "A faded woman with a sharp tongue would not be a great reward."
"I ask nothing better than a woman whom I could love, and who might love me."
"But you deserve something better," she said, in a softer, lower tone.