her. Simultaneously with the leap of light into his eyes came the leap
of her error into her consciousness.

"Oh," he said, and smiled, a slow smile that widened as leisurely as
sorghum in the pouring.

"You made me tell you that! You came here for that. To find out!"

"Nothin' the sort, Hattie. You only verified what I kinda suspected.
Naturally, you've kept it from her. Admire you for it."

"But I lied! See! I know your tricks. She does know you for what you are
and what you made of me. She knows everything. Now what are you going
to do? She knows! I lied! I--" then stopped, at the curve his lips were
taking and at consciousness of the pitiableness of her device.

"Morton," she said, her hands opening into her lap into pads of great
pink helplessness, "you wouldn't tell her--on me! You're not that low!"

"Wouldn't tell what?"

He was rattling her, and so she fought him with her gaze, trying to
fasten and fathom under the flicker of his lids. But there were no eyes
there. Only the neutral, tricky tan.

"You see, Morton, she's just sixteen. The age when it's more important
than anything else in the world to a young girl that's been reared like
her to--to have her life _regular_! Like all her other little school
friends. She's like that, Morton. Sensitive! Don't touch her, Morton.
For God's sake, don't! Some day when she's past having to care so
terribly--when she's older--you can rake it up if you must torture. I'll
tell her then. But for God's sake, Morton, let us live--now!"

"Hattie, you meet me to-morrow morning and take a little journey to one
of these little towns around here in Jersey or Connecticut, and your lie
to her won't be a lie any more."

"Morton--I--I don't understand. Why?"

"I'll marry you."

"You fool!" she said, almost meditatively. "So you've heard we've gotten
on a bit. You must even have heard of this"--placing her hand over the
jar of the Brown Cold Cream. "You want to be in at the feast. You're so
easy to read that I can tell you what you're after before you can get
the coward words out. Marry you! You fool!"

It was as if she could not flip the word off scornfully enough, sucking
back her lower lip, then hurling.

"Well, Hattie," he said, unbunching his soft hat, "I reckon that's
pretty plain."

"I reckon it is, Morton."

"All right. Everybody to his own notion of carryin' a grudge to the
grave. But it's all right, honey. No hard feelin's. It's something to
know I was willin