"I wish you were here. Yet you mustn't be here—not until everything is settled. Somehow I don't dare think that we can ever be happy. It doesn't seem right to think of it, does it?
"But I love you."
She gave her note to the little captain when he came with the chowder.
He brought something beside the chowder. In a square box, smelling of sandalwood, was an exquisite kimono of palest pink crêpe, embroidered with wisteria blossoms.
"It has been lying in an old trunk for years," he exulted, as he shook it out before her delighted eyes. "When I saw her," he nodded toward the door of the inner room, "when I saw her with that pink ribbon in her hair, it just came to me how nice it would be if she had a wrapper or somethin' to go with it. And after I got home I went rummagin' around until I found this."
"It's lovely," said Bettina; "she'll be simply crazy over it, captain."
"The funny part of it is that I bought it in foreign lands, thinking that some day I might get married, and I'd give it to my wife—and now I'm givin' it to her."
Bettina sparkled. "Oh," she said, "I believe you're in love with her, captain."
The captain sat down in a chair by the fire. "Well," he said earnestly, "it's like this. I ain't ever thought of her that way, exactly. It always seemed to me that she knew so much, and that I was such a rough old fellow. But lately—well, she's been lonely, and she ain't been well. And all of a sudden it has kind o' seemed to me that, if I ain't smart, I've got a tender heart, and I'd know how to make a soft nest for her to live in, and it seems to me that maybe, after all, she might throw me in along with all the rest of the reasons for getting married. I guess most men are sort of thrown in. Of course the wimmen don't know it, but what they get married for is to have a parlor of their own, and a kitchen of their own, and somebody to fuss over, and it don't make much difference what man they hang their tender affections on, just so he provides the kitchen and parlor. Now here's Letty Matthews, all tired out with teaching, and this is my time to step in. If she'll ever take me she'll take me now, and as soon as she's well enough to hear me say it, I'm going to ask her."
"If Letty marries you, it will be because she loves you—she's that kind. She'd die sooner than take a man for what he could give her."