He grew quite red as he talked, and I waited patiently for him to go on,
but gave him no help.

"Well, here goes. If you hate me afterwards I can't help it. I had no idea
it would be so hard to tell you or I shouldn't have attempted it. But
since you have been sitting there looking at me I am beginning to think
differently of it myself, and I'm sure that, with all your kindness, you
will be very hard on me, and tell me to accept the hardest alternative.
Now, Ruth, you'd better shake hands with me and say good-by while you like
me, because you will think of me as another Charlie Hardy when I've
finished."

He actually held out his hand, but I folded mine together.

"No," I said, smiling, "I shall not bid you good-by until I really am
through with you. Don't look so discouraged. Come; possibly I may be a
better friend to you than you think."

"You are awfully good," he said again. I don't know when I have so
impressed a man with my extraordinary goodness as I did by listening to
Charlie while he did all the talking. If I could have held my tongue
another hour, he would have called me an angel.

"Well, although you may not know it, I am engaged to Louise King. I
always have been very fond of her, and when I found I couldn't get
Sallie, I was sure I cared as much for Louise as I ever could care for
anybody, and I was perfectly satisfied with her--thought she would make me
an awfully good wife, and all that. But while Miss Taliaferro was up here
visiting Sallie, I was with her a good deal, and the first thing I knew we
were dead in love with each other. You know we were both in Sallie's
wedding-party, and I tell you, Ruth, to stand up at the altar with a girl
he is already half in love with, plays the very deuce with a man. Kentucky
girls are all pretty, I suppose--everybody says so, and you have to make
believe you think so whether you do or not; but this one--you know her?
Isn't she the prettiest thing you ever saw? Well, of course she didn't
know I was engaged, and I kept putting off telling her, until the first
thing I knew I was letting her see how much I thought of her. I don't
suppose it was at all difficult to see, but girls are keen on such
subjects, and a man can't be in love with one more than a week before she
knows more about it than he does. Then, after she told me that she loved
me, how could I tell her that, in spite of what I had said, I was engaged
to another girl? Wouldn't she have thought I was a r