"You are bad-tempered," she said. "Don't be bad-tempered. The sun is just lovely and I shall be freckled. I hate being freckled, but the process is alluring. And I have news." She added the last softly to herself, expecting him to question her. He did not. He led her to a seat in the shade of a tree and stood behind her looking down on her wide straw hat.
"I am not young," he began; "I have nearly reached forty——"
"I thought you were more," she interrupted, and his brows contracted.
"I have lived hardly. I have done many things which I wish to forget, and which I cannot. I have made money where to make money needs grit and—and a conscience not too tender."
"Are you going to write an autobiography?" she asked. She had no idea of the seriousness of his mood, for all of his moods struck her as more or less serious.
"I am stating broadly the manner of man I am. I don't want to appear a saint. I would rather you did not know how I lived when I was heaping dollars. My past life belongs to the past. I have now another life before me. It may be happier than the drag of years behind."
"It ought to be—you are rich."
"It depends upon you."
She tilted her hat upwards, but the brim was wide and she could not see him.
"On me?"