“Something kept telling me not to go away,” he said. “It must have been in the air—this thing. Already these evil crawling things were at work. Oh, if only all the world, like you and Telfer and some of the others here, had an appreciation of the sense of privacy.”
Mary Underwood laughed quietly.
“I was more than half right when, in the old days, I dreamed of making you a man at work upon the things of the mind,” she said. “The sense of privacy indeed! What a fellow you have become! John Telfer’s method was better than my own. He has given you the knack of saying things with a flourish.”
Sam shook his head.
“Here is something that cannot be faced down with a laugh,” he said stoutly. “Here is something at you—it is tearing at you—it has got to be met. Even now women are waking up in bed and turning the matter over in their minds. To-morrow they will be at you again. There is but one way and we must take it. You and I will have to marry.”
Mary looked at the serious new lines of his face.
“What a proposal!” she cried.
On an impulse she began singing, her voice fine and strong running through the quiet night.
“He rode and he thought of her red, red lips,”
she sang, and laughed again.