se up to his five feet
and three inches, and swelled to the extent of his power. "Me." He
tapped his small chest. "I'll come straight to the end of this thing.
Phil Baronet's been quite a friend here, quite a friend. I've explained
to you all about him. Now you know he's left town to keep from bein'
mixed up in some things. They's some business of his father's he was
runnin' crooked. You know they say, I heard it out at Fingal's Creek,
that he left here on account of a girl he wanted to get rid of. And if
they'd talk that way about one girl, they'll say Marjie was doin' wrong
to go with him. You've all been friends of the Baronets. I never could
see why; but now--well, you know Phil left. Now, it rests with me"--more
tapping on that little quart-measure chest--"with me to keep things
quiet and save his name from further talk, and save Marjie, too. Many a
man, a business man, now, wouldn't have done as I'm doin'. I'll marry
Marjie. That saves you from poverty. It saves Irving Whately's name from
lastin' disgrace, and it saves Baronet's boy. I can control the men
that's against Baronet, in the business matter--some land case--and I
know the girl that the talk's all about; and it saves Marjory's name
bein' mixed up with this boy of Judge Baronet's."

Had Judson been before Aunt Candace, she would have thrust him from the
door with one lifting of her strong, shapely hand. Dollie Gentry would
have cracked his head with her rolling pin before she let him go. Cris
Mead's wife would have chased him clear to the Neosho; she was Bill
Mead's own mother when it came to whooping things; but poor, gentle Mrs.
Whately sat dumb and dazed in a grief-stricken silence.

"Give me your consent, and the thing's done. Marjie's only twenty.
She'll come to me for safety soon as she knows what you do. She'll have
to, to save them that's dearest to her. You and her father and her
friendship for the Baronets ought to do somethin'; besides, Marjie needs
somebody to look after her. She's a pretty girl and everybody runs after
her. She'd be spoiled. And she's fond of me, always was fond of me. I
don't know what it is about some men makes girls act so; but now,
there's Lettie Conlow, she's just real fond of me." (Oh, the popinjay!)
"You'll say yes, and say it now." There was a ring of authority in his
last words, to which Mrs. Whately had insensibly come to yield.

She sat for a long time trying to see a way out of all this tangled web
of her days.