"They don't know what they want," he stated dogmatically. "The way to win a woman is to pick her up and put her on a horse and run away with her——"
"Suppose she doesn't care to be run away with?" I asked.
"Oh, she'd settle down to it," he said securely; "and besides that, I can't really imagine a nice girl asking a man to marry her."
I thought of Elizabeth as she had stood with her hand on her heart and had hurled defiance at conventions.
"Girls are hard to understand," I murmured.
"Oh, I don't know," he contended. "If a man gets right down to primitive principles and keeps after her, he'll get her—and it makes me hot to think I am wasting valuable time trying to stick to Dabney's old rules, when I have to go back West again on Monday."
I wanted to be sure, so I murmured, "Of course it's Elizabeth Ames?"
"Who else?" he demanded. "Oh, I'm going to jump over the traces, Miss Sophie, and let her know I mean business. This thing of sitting around and letting her go off with another man—you know she's riding with Dabney this morning?"
I nodded.
"He's twice her age, and she thinks she likes him. Girls get romantic streaks, and Dabney's the kind they put up on a pedestal, but he isn't any more suited to her than—a bunch of beets——"