“Please don’t let’s have any cheap flirting, Gordon. I’m bothered enough as it is, by this predicament you’ve forced upon me.”
“I’ve forced upon you! Madge, if I didn’t have a whale of a lot of patience, you’d certainly get my goat. Here you are, away out here in this God-forsaken spot alone with me in the dark, and you act as if we were in the middle of Main Street, Springfield, with a whole flock of cops looking on!”
“Just what do you mean to infer by that, Gordon? Is there any reason for me to expect anything but the most correct conduct from you?”
“You can’t go provoking and tantalizing a fellow and expect him to remain a dummy—forever!”
“Meaning just what, Gordon. You may speak plainly.”
“Aunt Gracia ought to have wised you to a few things. Then you’d try to be more agreeable.”
“Your Aunt Gracia has ‘wised me to a few things’ as you so crudely term it. Which is why I’m not afraid of you in the least.”
“Madge, let’s cut this out! I’ve got a rotten temper and I know it. Sometimes it’s a devil of a job to hang on to it. So let’s talk of pleasanter things. This breakdown gives me just the chance I’ve wanted for a darn long time—the chance to talk about you! Madge, look here! I might as well get it out of my system right off the bat and have it done for good and all. Madge, honest-to-God, I love you!——”
“Gordon!”
“Oh, never mind the high-horse stuff! It’s no crime for a fellow to love a girl——”