ng in circles. And she--I give you my word I didn't do one
gosh-darned thing, but that girl just naturally took on and raved about
wanting me to marry her and blew me up when I said I hadn't asked her
and then--then--when I tried to get shelter in a little old shack we'd
stumbled on she just up and bolted. She----"

His words died away. His eyes dropped before the blaze that met them.

Very slowly Barry formulated his feelings.

"You--infernal----"

"Hold on there, I'm not any such thing."

Through the bluster of Johnny's rally a really injured innocence made
its outcry. "She had no more reason to bolt than a--a grandmother."
Grandmothers appeared to be Johnny's sole figure of comparison. "You're
getting this dead wrong, Barry. . . . Look here, what do you take me
for?"

"That's a large question," said Barry slowly. But his tone was milder
though far from reassuring. "But do you tell me that she asked you to
marry her?"

"I do. She did. Just like that--out of a clear sky."

"But what was the reason----"

"There wasn't a reason, I give you my word, Barry."

"You hadn't been saying anything to her--to suggest it?"

Johnny Byrd's face changed unhappily. His sunburned warmth deepened to a
brick red.

"Why, no--not about marrying. Oh, hang it all, Barry, don't act as if
you never kissed a pretty girl! Oh, she pretended she thought _that_ was
proposing to her--just as if a few friendly words and a half kiss meant
anything like that. . . . I'll own I was gone on her," Johnny found
himself suddenly announcing, "but when she was taking marriage for
granted right off it sounded too much like a hold-up and I flared all
over."

"A hold-up?"

"Oh, thumb screws, you know--the same old quick-step to the altar. I
hadn't done a thing, I tell you, but it looked as if she thought that
our being there was something she could stage a scene on and so I
thought--you don't know what things have been tried on me before," he
broke off to protest at Barry's expression.

Mutteringly he offered, "You other fellows may think you know a little
bit about side-stepping girls but when it comes to any kind of a bank
roll--they're like starving Armenians at sight of food. I'd had 'em try
all sorts of things. . . . But I own, now, she was just going according
to her foreign ways. She must have been half scared to death. And
she--she is pretty crazy about me----"

"I am not pretty crazy about you, Johnny Byrd!"

The door behind Barry