As for her thinking him one of those high-class society-burglars, or
social buccaneers, it didn’t so much matter to him, after all. He was
getting rather accustomed to the idea. Of course, she would be terribly
disappointed if she ever found out he wasn’t one, but there didn’t seem
much chance of his ever clearing himself, in her mind, of that unjust
suspicion. At least, he reflected moodily, he was capable of making one
person in the world not positively miserable. Last night when he had
parted from Dickie, he had found a small grain of the same kind of
comfort, in the fact the he (or truth) had not harmed Dickie. But to-day
Dickie had appeared saddened by Dan’s and Clarence’s troubles. Then,
too, Bob had been obliged to walk off, right in front of Dickie’s eyes
with the temperamental young thing whom Dickie wanted to marry the worst
way. And here he (Bob) was helping her over stones, “toting” frizzling
trout for her, and performing a hundred other little services which
should, by right, have been Dickie’s pleasure and privilege to perform.
Bob murmured a few idle regrets about Dickie, but Miss Dolly dismissed
them—and Dickie—peremptorily. She was sitting now, leaning against a
tree and the slave, by command, was lying at her feet.
“Did you know,” she said dreamily, “I am a new woman?”
He didn’t know it. He never would have dreamed it, and he told her so.
“Yes,” she observed, “I marched in the parade to Washington. That is, I
started, went a mile or two, and then got tired. But I marched there, in
principle, don’t you see? I think women should throw off their shackles.
Don’t you?” Bob might have replied he didn’t know that Miss Dolly ever
had had any shackles to throw off, but she didn’t give him time to
reply. “I read a book the other day wherein the women do the proposing,”
she went on. “It’s on an island and the women are ‘superwomen.’ All
women are ‘super’ nowadays.” She regarded him tentatively. Her glance
was appraising. “Do you know of any reason why women should _not_ do the
proposing, Mr. Bennett?”
“Can’t say that I do,” answered Bob gloomily, feeling as if some one had
suddenly laid a cold hand on his breast, right over where the heart is.
Her words had caused his thoughts to fly back to another. She might not
be proposing to the hammer-thrower at that moment in that “super”
fashion, but the chances were that the hammer-thrower was proposing to
her. He didn’t look like a chap that would delay matters. He would
strike while the iron was hot.
The temperamental young thing eyed Bob and then she eyed a
dreamy-looking cloud. She let the fingers of one hand stray idly in
Bob’s hair as he lay with his head in the grass.
“It tries hard to curl, doesn’t it?” she remarked irrelevantly.
“What?” said Bob absently, his mind about two miles and a half away.
“Your hair. You’ve got lovely hair.” Bob looked disgusted. “It started
to curl and then changed its mind, didn’t it?” she giggled.
Bob muttered disagreeably.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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