"I've got something to tell you."
She picked up his hand to lean her head on, and says, "What? Me?"—which I'd noticed was one of the little family jokes, that no family should be without a set of.
"Do you know, Ellen," he said, "to-night, when I went out to go over to Beldon's, I thought you didn't like my going."
"You did?" she says. "What made you think that?"
"The way you spoke—or looked—or kissed me. I don't know. I imagined it, I guess," says he. "And—I've got something to own up."
She just waited; and he said it out, blunt:
"It made me not want to come home," says he.
"Not want to come home?" she says over, startled.
He nodded. "Lacy and Bright both left Beldon's before I did," he says. "I thought probably—I don't know. I imagined you were going to be polite as the deuce, the way I thought you were when I went out."
"Oh," she says, "was I that?"