"I wish I could forget it."
"Why should you ever think of it?" she demanded with some heat. "I am the same Becky with or without it."
"Not quite the same," he was turning his hat in his hand. Then, raising his eyes and looking at her squarely, he said what he had come to say, "I have—I have just been to see Dalton, Becky."
A wave of red washed over her neck, touched her chin, her cheeks. "I don't see what that has to do with me."
"It has a great deal to do with you. I told him you were going to marry me."
The wave receded. She was chalk-white.
"Randy, how dared you do such a thing?"
"I dared," said Randy, with tense fierceness, "because a man like Dalton wants what other men want. He will think about you a lot, and I want him to think. He won't sleep to-night, and I want him to stay awake. He will wonder whether you love me, and he will be afraid that you do—and I want him to be afraid."
"But it was a lie, Randy. I am not going to marry you."