chicken good?" he asked.
"S—ir?" stammered the boy.
"And so——?" prompted the man.
From the boy's lips a long shuddering sigh escaped. "And so," said the boy, "I have ruined your daughter's life."
"And what do you propose to do about it?" asked the man.
With a quick squaring of his shoulders the boy drew his fine young body to its full height.
"I propose to do whatever you want me to do," he said.
"Such as what?" asked the man.
"Such as anything!" said the boy. Almost imperceptibly his breath quickened. "Why, when I came here just now," he cried, "I came, of course, expecting to be stormed at, to be cursed, to be insulted, to be told I was a liar, to have everything I said or did rammed down my throat again! But you?——All you've done is just to listen to me! And believe me! And laugh! It's as though I'd hurt you so much you were sorriest of all for me—and were 19 trying every darned way you knew to keep me from going mad! It's as though——" From the sudden slight sag of his shoulders he rallied again with a gesture of folded arms and finality. "I tell you I want to do whatever you want me to do," he repeated quite simply.
"Have you talked with anyone—about this?" asked the man.
"Just with my brother," said the boy.
"And what did he say?" asked the man.
"It's the brother who runs the farm with me," explained the boy. "He's a cripple and rather a bit nervous now and then, but he reads an awful lot of books. Not just farm books I mean—not just scientific books, but all sorts of——"
"By which you are intending to imply," interrupted the man, "that your brother's opinion, even though nervous, may be considered fairly sophisticated?"
"Oh, yes," said the boy. "And we went into it all very thoroughly. All the scandal and notoriety of the expulsion, I mean, and the fright and the mortification, and the silly sap-headed mothers 20 who won't let their daughters chum with your daughter any more, and the old cats who all their lives long will be pussy footing after her with whispers and insinuations. It's the bill, of course, that I can't ever pay. That's the beastliness of it! But what I've got, of course, I must give towards it! This isn't just my opinion, you understand?" he questioned a bit sharply. "But it's my brother's, too! And it isn't just my brother's either! It's mine!"
"And that opinion is——?" prompted the man.
"I should like to ask your daughter to marry me!" said the boy.
"I admit that that opinion is—classical," drawled the man. "Shall—shall we consult the lady?"
"Yes," said the boy.
"Suppose you go to the door and call her," suggested the father.
An instant later the boy was on the threshold. With the hesitation of perplexity only he peered first to the right and then to the left.
"Miss Bretton!" he called.
"Not even 'Daphne?'" interpolated the man.
With a vague gesture of surprise the boy swung back into the room. 21
"Why—why I never even saw your daughter," he said, "until the night of the dance!"
"What?" cried the man.
Before the interrogative exclamation could even be acknowledged Daphne herself appeared upon the scene.
"Yes—Mr. Wiltoner?" she faltered.
"Mr. Wiltoner," said her father quite abruptly, "has just made you an offer of marriage."
"A—what?" gasped the girl.
"Mr. Wiltoner—I would say," drawled her father, "has—just done himself the honor of asking your hand in marriage."
"What?" repeated the girl, her voice like a smothered scream.
"And he's quite poor, I judge," said her father, "with all his own way to make in the world—and a crippled brother besides. And whoever marries him now will have the devil of a time pitching in neck and neck to help him run his farm. Have to carry wood, I mean, and water, and help plow and help scrub and 22 help kill pigs—and help wrangle with the crippled brother and——"
"What?" gasped the girl.
"Oh, of course, I admit it's very old-fashioned," murmured her father, "very quixotic—very absurd—and altogether what any decent lad would do under the circumstances. And you, of course, will refuse him to the full satisfaction of your own thoroughly modern sense of chivalry and self-respect Nevertheless——" From the half-mocking raillery of the older man's eyes a sudden glance wistful as a caress shot down across the boy's sensitive face and superb young figure. "Nevertheless," he readdressed his daughter almost harshly, "I would to God that you were old- fashioned enough to faint on his neck and accept him!"
"Why—why Father!" stammered the girl. "I'm engaged to the—to the English professor at college!"
Above the faint flare of a fresh cigarette the man's ironic smile broke suddenly again through shrewdly narrowed eyes.
"'Are'? Or 'were'?" he asked. "'Yet', you mean? 'Still?'"
"Oh, of course, I know I can't marry anyone now," quivered the 23 girl. "Everything's over—everything's smashed. It's only that—that——"
With the hand that had just tossed away a half-burnt match her father reached out a bit abruptly to clasp the boy's fingers.
"You hear, Richard?" he asked. "Your offer, it seems, is rejected! So the incident is closed, my boy—with honor to all and 'malice towards none!' Completely closed!" he adjured with a certain finality. "And the little lady——" he bowed to his daughter, "suffers no more—fear—nor ever will, I trust, while her life remains in my keeping." From his pocket he snatched a card suddenly, scribbled a line on it, and handed it to the boy. "I'm going South to-morrow," he smiled. "Daphne and I. To be gone rather indefinitely I imagine. About January send me a line! About your own luck, you know, that farm of yours and everything! It's very interesting!" With faintly forked eyebrows he turned to watch the precipitated parting between the boy and girl—a slender, quivering hand stealing limply into a clasp 24 that wrung it like a torture, blue eyes still baffled with perplexity lifting heavily to black eyes as quick as a bared nerve. "Good-bye!" said the man quite trenchantly.
"Good-bye," choked the girl.
"Good-bye!" snapped the boy.
Then the man and his daughter stood alone again.
"There's a bath-room down the hall!" said the man. "And my own room is just beyond. Take a tub! Take a nap. Take—something! I've got a letter to write and don't want any one around!"
It was quite evident also that he didn't want any things around, either. The instant his daughter had left him he turned with a single impetuous gesture and swept all the books and papers from his desk. It might have been the tantrumous impulse of a child, or the unconscious
