it's different."

"Please go back to him."

"I will not. I'm done!"

The grim thought came to her that she had ineluctably become a valuable
operative in the interests of the Vose-Mern agency. According to
appearances the work was finished. However, she promptly blazed into
indignation which rang true. "I'm only a stranger to that poor old man.
He did not understand. I had no right to rush in on him as I did."

"I had the right to invite you."

"I won't have it on my conscience that I have been a party to this break
between you two. If it were not so dreadful it would be silly, sir."

"I have the right to be silly about my own business, if you're bound to
call it silly, what I have done."

"Go back, I tell you!"

"I will not!"

"You shall not walk away with me."

"I invited you to come up here. I shall see you to the door of that
tavern. You may never speak to me again, but you won't be able to say
about me that I deserted you in the dark night."

"Will you come back here after you have escorted me to the tavern?"

"No! It's settled into a stand-off between Flagg and me."

"Don't you want to please me?"

"Yes, even to lying down here in the mud and letting you walk on me," he
declared, his fervor breaking from the repression he had been
maintaining with difficulty. "And it's because he has insulted somebody
that I feel like that toward--that's why I'm done with him. I'm not
putting it very smoothly. But it's in here!" He pounded his fist on his
breast.

"Mr. Latisan, this is folly. I'm only a waitress."

"I'm thanking God that you are and that you aren't too high above me, as
I was afraid you were when I met you in New York. You're down where I
can talk to you."

She started to walk away, but he leaped and seized both her arms. "This
is going mighty fast," he gasped. "I never talked to a girl in this way
in all my life. I'll probably never dare to talk to you if I wait for
daylight to-morrow--I'll be too scared of my thoughts overnight."

She did not try to twist herself free from his grasp; she was more
self-possessed than he was--he was trembling in all his frame.

"It's like dynamite," he stammered. "I reckon it was in me all the time!
The first flash of your eyes lighted the fuse! I've blown up." He pulled
her close to him, flung his arms about her, and kissed her. But
immediately he loosed her and stepped back. "I didn't intend to do that!
My feelings got away from me."

"And now may I go