cross it; but here you're talking
the way you done with their hired man--that has sneaked around here to
meet you."

He didn't give back none, though he couldn't talk at once.

"Go slow!" says he. "Curly, be careful! I didn't have any other chance."

"Any other chance?" says I. "For what? To make love to a girl that ain't
had much experience--to make love to her because she's got a load of
money? I've seen some sort of dirt done in my life," says I, "but this
is the lowest down I ever seen," says I.

"And Bonnie Bell," says I--she still had me around the neck, holding my
arms down, and I didn't want to hurt her--"how'll I tell the old man?
You know I've got to come through with him. You, the girl we loved so
much, Bonnie Bell," says I, "we never thought you'd class yourself below
your own level."

"She hasn't!" says he, right sudden then. "It wasn't her fault. She
hasn't promised a thing to me, and you know that. She's not to blame for
a thing, and you know that too. She hasn't said a word she couldn't say
before all the world. What more do you want? She's too good a girl to
get the worst of it. Her father's too good a man to get the worst of it
too. She'd never let him."

"She won't have to do that," says I. "I'll take care of that. That's my
business."

"Curly," says she, "what are you going to do? Don't you love my father
at all--or me? You're like another father to me. And I've loved you; and
I always will, whatever you do to me."

I couldn't put her arms down--I wasn't very strong, because I was
thinking.

"If you tell my father," says she, "you'd break his heart. Cover it up
for me, Curly--I've not promised anything. But, oh, Curly, I didn't
mean harm to anyone; and I'll never be happy any more."

"You see what you've done!" says I to him after a while.

He got white now, instead of red.

"How can I make it up? I can't stand to hear her talk that way," he
says.

"Whose business is it how she talks?" says I to him. "Damn you! What
right have you to come here and make her unhappy for a minute? Didn't
you know how we loved her?"

"Everyone does," says he. "Till I die I'll do that. How can I help it
any more than you can? And if I've hurt her now," says he, "God do so to
me and more also. But I've declared myself--I'll not take back a word. I
didn't lie then and I won't now."

He seemed game. Still, so long as it's just talking, you can't always
tell how much of a bluff a man is throwing.

"If i