Camping -- Fiction; Manners and customs -- Fiction
"Yes, I do," she answered. "And you need not shut your jaw hard and grit
your teeth that way. That is exactly what he did when he found out about
Mr. Raybold. It is of no use to get angry, for you can't do anything
without my permission; and, besides, I tell you that if I were condemned
by a court to be made love to, I would much rather have Martin make it
than Mr. Raybold. Martin is a good deal more than a guide; he has a good
education, and would not be here if it were not for his love of nature. He
is going to make nature his object in life, and there is something noble
in that; a great deal better than trying to strut about on the stage."
"And those two have really been making love to you?" asked Clyde.
"Yes, really," she answered. "You never saw people more in earnest in all
your life. As for Mr. Raybold, he was as earnest as a cat after a bird. He
made me furiously angry. Martin was different. He is just as earnest, but
he is more of a gentleman; and when I told him what I wanted him to do, he
said he would do it. But there is no use in telling your cousin what I
want him to do. He is determined to persecute me and make me miserable,
and there is no way of stopping it, except by making a quarrel between him
and Uncle Archibald. It is a shame!" she went on, "Who could have thought
that two people would have turned up to disturb me in this way."
"Margery," said Mr. Clyde, and although he called her by her Christian
name she took no notice of it, "you think you have too many lovers: but
you are mistaken. You have not enough; you ought to have three."
She looked at him inquiringly.
"Yes," he said, quickly, "and I want to be the third."
"And so make matters three times as bad as they were at first?" she
asked.
"Not at all," said he. "When you have chosen one of them, he could easily
keep away the two others."
"Do you mean," said Margery, "that if I were to agree to have three, and
then, if I were to ask you to do it, you would go away quietly with one of
the others and leave me in peace with the third one?"
Mr. Clyde half smiled, but instantly grew serious again, and a flush came
on his face. "Margery," said he, "I cannot bear trifling any more about
this. No matter what anybody has said to you, whether it is any one in
this camp or any one out of it, there is not a man in this world who--"
"Oh, Mr. Clyde," interrupted Margery, "you must not sit there and speak to
me in such an excited way. If any one should see us they would think we
were quarrelling. Let us go down to the lake; the air from the water is
cool and soothing."
Together they walked from under the shade of the tree, and so wended their
way that it brought them to a mass of shrubbery which edged the water a
little distance down the lake. On the other side of this shrubbery was a
pretty bank, which they had seen before.
"It always tranquillizes me," said Margery, as they stood side by side on
the bank, "to look out over the water. Doesn't it have that effect on
you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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