That was natural enough. When a woman says yes, it is time to tremble. Even Rube knew that.
“You mean it? It is a solemn promise! One of those promises you always keep!”
Again Mell trembled violently—worse than before, and again said “yes.”
That barely audible yes, had scarcely died upon her white lips when Rube sprang to his feet, and casting off his fawn colored flannel jacket and light waist-coat, tossed them in a careless heap upon the ground at her feet. Divested of those outer garments, the symmetrical curves of his young manhood, and the irregular curves of his honest face showed up to great advantage in white linen and a necktie—the latter a very chic article of its kind, consisting of blazoned monstrosities of art, in bright vermillion on a background of white—blood on snow.
“You must excuse my shirt-sleeves,” said Rube, during the process of disrobing. “I have no costume, so must do the best I can under the circumstances.”
He next made off with his suspenders, and began tugging at his shirt in an alarming fashion.
“What are you going to do?” interrogated Mell, with a horrified expression. “You are not going to—”
“No,” said Rube, laughing, and coloring too. “I’m not going to take it off. I’m only going to—” tugging all the while—“make myself into a sailor boy, or flowing Turk, or a loose Brave, or a something or other, to keep pace with those brocaded Templars, Hospitallers, and Knights of the Golden Fleece over there. Come, now, can’t you fix a fellow up?”
“Fix a fellow up?” echoed Mell, helplessly. She never had ‘fixed a fellow up,’ and she knew less about it than the sacred writings of Zoroaster.