ort.

The young men were forced to give way, and, not too proud to cast
glances of placating nature at Homer, they fell from their places and
walked to the benches around the hall. Yvette and Homer were left
standing alone, conspicuous, the center of all eyes.

Homer clenched his fists and glared about him; then--for in his ungainly
body there resided something that is essential to manhood, and without
which none may be called a gentleman--he offered his arm to Yvette. "I
guess we better go," he said, softly. Then squaring his powerful
shoulders and glancing about him with a real dignity which Scattergood
Baines, sitting in one corner, noted and applauded, he led the girl from
the room.

"I'll see you home," he said, formally. "I hain't got nothin' to say."

"It--it's not your fault," she said, tremulously.

"Somebody'll wisht it wa'n't their fault 'fore mornin'," he answered.

"I shouldn't have gone."

"Why? Hain't you as good as any of them, and better? Hain't you the
pertiest girl I ever see?... You hain't mad with _me_, be you?"

"'No.... Not with anybody, I guess. I--I ought to be used to it. I--"
She began to cry.

It was a dark spot there on the bridge. Homer was not apt at words, but
he could feel and he did feel. It was no mere impulse to comfort a
pretty girl that moved him to inclose her with his muscular arms and to
press her to him none too gently.

"I kin lick the hull world fer you," he said, huskily, and then he
kissed her wet cheek again and again, and repeated his ability to thrash
all comers in her cause, and stated his desire to undertake exactly that
task for the term of her natural life. "If you was to marry me," he
said, "they wouldn't nobody dast trample on you.... You're a-goin' to
marry me, hain't you?"

"I--I don't know.... You--you don't know anything about me."

"Calc'late I know enough," he said.

"Your folks wouldn't put up with it."

"Huh!"

There was a silence. Then she said, brokenly: "I must go away. I can't
ever go back to the store to-morrow to have everybody staring at me and
talking about me.... I want to go away to-night."

"You sha'n't. Nor no other time, neither."

And then, out of the darkness behind, spoke Scattergood Baines's voice.
"Hain't calc'latin' to bust the gal, be you?... Jest happened along to
say the deacon's been talkin' to your pa about you 'n' her, and your
pa's het up consid'able. He's startin' out to look fer you. Lucky I come
along, wa'n'