The girl looked away.
"You said that day—that day—that day, you know——"
"Well?"
"You said most distinctly that—you didn't love me."
He turned an exasperated face toward her.
"Said that? Of course I said it. What did you expect me to say? How apt would you have been to have taken me——"
"Taken you!"
"——if I'd come up with the confession that your eyes set me crazy and the impudent tilt of your little nose was very much on my nerves? Supposing I'd told you that you bowled me over the moment I saw you—It's God's truth. I saw you at the theater in New York just before you left for Fort Leavenworth. I followed you there, but nothing that wasn't brass buttons seemed to be having an inning; and I didn't care to meet you at all, unless I could win out. So I left and went down to Arizona, where there was some land business I had to look after. Then McFay came down there and talked a good deal with his mouth; and I was sure it was all off and was doubly glad I hadn't met you. Then came the news of the earthquake and the fire; and I kept waiting for the beggar to get leave and go to you—and he didn't go. And then one night he—well, he was drunk, or he wouldn't have done it—but he talked some more with his mouth; and so I knew what to expect from him and—er, removed your photograph from his rooms—he hadn't any business having it around for men to stare at, anyway—and then I came here to find you; and—and that's about all, I guess."
He laughed an embarrassed laugh.
"I was pretty well done for before—it seems to me everybody I met kept talking about you—but the boarding-house business finished me completely. There were you—you'd lost more than all that trash put together, and had been badly treated, and all—but you held your head high and never peeped and made that dining-table a thing to look forward to beyond everything. No wonder the landlady hated you. I could have kneeled down and kissed your little boots—not that you'd have cared about it especially."