"Not till you are all mine," he answered in his tenderest tones.
"That will be a long time," she said determinedly.
"I can wait, but to continue--Say 'You are an old nuisance, Tom, but I like to have you around.'"
"You are an old nuisance, Tom, but I like to have you around," she repeated, parrot-like; then she added sweetly, "I have something else I wish to tell you."
Deceived by her sentimental tone, Moore stepped near the curtains and like a flash she snapped the skirt off his arm and vanished behind her shelter.
"The deuce!" exclaimed Moore, in chagrin.
The curtains undulated violently as though some vigorous performance were being enacted behind them. The next moment Bessie, fully attired, swept out between them and across the room, her independence and peace of mind restored with the resumption of the purloined garment.
"Bessie," said Moore, persuasively, and she halted on the threshold in haughty response. "Bessie, won't you let me speak to you before you go?"
"I fear it will only be a waste of time, Mr. Moore," she answered.
"Yet I waited when you asked me to from behind the curtains," he said, a glint of laughter in his eyes.