“’Tisn’t a joke at all,” Caleb assured her, “I mean it. I’d a’ talked it over with you before, only the idee never came clear to me till to-night. Here’s how it is--” “You--you care for her?” asked Desirée very quietly. Caleb, full as he was of his own aspirations, noticed how dull and lifeless her voice had all at once grown. “You’re tired out!” he cried, all remorse, “Here I keep you up, listenin’ to my fool talk when you ought to be sound asleep! Nice sort of guardian I am! I’m goin’--” “No. Wait!” she ordered, with a pitiful shadow of her wonted dainty imperiousness, “I’m not tired. Tell me. Are you in love with her?” “In love with her?” scoffed Caleb. “With that little rabbit-faced bunch of silliness? Not me! But she comes of about the biggest fam’ly here. She’s pop’lar ev’rywhere. If I was to marry her, I’d get with the best crowd in Granite. My place’d be as sure as yours’ll be when you marry that gold-shirt chap--whoever he turns out to be--that we was talkin’ about the other day. I was speakin’ of the idee to Caine, only to-night, an’ he says--” “_Oh!_” The furious monosyllable snapped through his rambling talk like a pistol shot. Caleb paused in amaze. The girl had risen. Her tiny fists were clinched, her face was hard as a statue’s. The moonlight gave back cold fire from her great eyes. “How dare you?” she panted, “How _dare_ you! You speak of marrying Letty Standish as you would speak of buying a horse! You even talk it over with the man she has promised to marry! But I suppose you chuckled to yourself over your barroom cunning in getting an opinion from him without letting him know it was _his_ sweetheart you planned to steal. You sneer at her as a ‘rabbit-faced little bunch of silliness’ and yet you speak in the same breath of making her your wife. Do you realize you are not only insulting her by such a thought, but you are insulting _me_ by speaking so in my presence?” “_Dey!_” gasped the bewildered man, “You must be crazy, child! I never saw you like--” “Be still!” she commanded, her silver voice ringing harsh, “I forbid you to speak to me, now or any time. A man who can plan what you are planning, and who can boast of it, isn’t fit to speak to _any woman_. You went to that house as a guest--and you asked mens’ opinions in the smoking room--” “It was the dressin’ room, Dey,” he pleaded, “An’ it was only me an’ Caine--” “You ask mens’ opinion,” blazed on Desirée, unheeding, “as to whether you are likely to gain anything in a social way by wrecking an innocent girl’s life. You sit by her at dinner--at her own father’s table--and plan in smug complacency how to separate her from a man she really loves,--and to compel her to marry _you_. Why, you aren’t fit to marry her chambermaid. There isn’t a groom in her stable that hasn’t higher, holier ideals. Now _go_! This is the last time I want to see you as long as I live!”