"Do you mean that?" he asked unsteadily. "Why?""To put a stop to all the nasty gossip of the beach. That's a pretty good reason, isn't it?"The temptation was strong enough and sudden enough to make him waver, but all the disgust came back to him that was his when he lay in the grass fighting gnats and cursing adventure, and he answered, -"No; it is worse than no reason at all. I don't care to marry you as a matter of expedience--""You are the most ridiculous creature!" she broke in, with a flash of her old-time anger. "You talk love and marriage to me, very much against my wish, and go mooning around over the plantation week after week because you can't have me, and look at me when you think I'm not noticing and when all the time I'm wondering when you had your last square meal because of the hungry look in your eyes, and make eyes at my revolver-belt hanging on a nail, and fight duels about me, and all the rest--and--and now, when I say I'll marry you, you do yourself the honour of refusing me.""You can't make me any more ridiculous than I feel," he answered, rubbing the lump on his forehead reflectively. "And if this is the accepted romantic programme--a duel over a girl, and the girl rushing into the arms of the winner--why, I shall not make a bigger ass of myself by going in for it.""I thought you'd jump at it," she confessed, with a naivete he could not but question, for he thought he saw a roguish gleam in her eyes.
"My conception of love must differ from yours then," he said. "Ishould want a woman to marry me for love of me, and not out of romantic admiration because I was lucky enough to drill a hole in a man's shoulder with smokeless powder. I tell you I am disgusted with this adventure tom-foolery and rot. I don't like it. Tudor is a sample of the adventure-kind--picking a quarrel with me and behaving like a monkey, insisting on fighting with me--'to the death,' he said. It was like a penny dreadful."She was biting her lip, and though her eyes were cool and level-looking as ever, the tell-tale angry red was in her cheeks.
"Of course, if you don't want to marry me--""But I do," he hastily interposed.
"Oh, you do--"
"But don't you see, little girl, I want you to love me," he hurried on. "Otherwise, it would be only half a marriage. I don't want you to marry me simply because by so doing a stop is put to the beach gossip, nor do I want you to marry me out of some foolish romantic notion. I shouldn't want you . . . that way.""Oh, in that case," she said with assumed deliberateness, and he could have sworn to the roguish gleam, "in that case, since you are willing to consider my offer, let me make a few remarks. In the first place, you needn't sneer at adventure when you are living it yourself; and you were certainly living it when I found you first, down with fever on a lonely plantation with a couple of hundred wild cannibals thirsting for your life. Then I came along--""And what with your arriving in a gale," he broke in, "fresh from the wreck of the schooner, landing on the beach in a whale-boat full of picturesque Tahitian sailors, and coming into the bungalow with a Baden-Powell on your head, sea-boots on your feet, and a whacking big Colt's dangling on your hip--why, I am only too ready to admit that you were the quintessence of adventure.""Very good," she cried exultantly. "It's mere simple arithmetic--the adding of your adventure and my adventure together. So that's settled, and you needn't jeer at adventure any more. Next, I don't think there was anything romantic in Tudor's attempting to kiss me, nor anything like adventure in this absurd duel. But I do think, now, that it was romantic for you to fall in love with me. And finally, and it is adding romance to romance, I think . . . I think I do love you, Dave--oh, Dave!"The last was a sighing dove-cry as he caught her up in his arms and pressed her to him.
"But I don't love you because you played the fool to-day," she whispered on his shoulder. "White men shouldn't go around killing each other.""Then why do you love me?" he questioned, enthralled after the manner of all lovers in the everlasting query that for ever has remained unanswered.
"I don't know--just because I do, I guess. And that's all the satisfaction you gave me when we had that man-talk. But I have been loving you for weeks--during all the time you have been so deliciously and unobtrusively jealous of Tudor.""Yes, yes, go on," he urged breathlessly, when she paused.
"I wondered when you'd break out, and because you didn't I loved you all the more. You were like Dad, and Von. You could hold yourself in check. You didn't make a fool of yourself.""Not until to-day," he suggested.
"Yes, and I loved you for that, too. It was about time. I began to think you were never going to bring up the subject again. And now that I have offered myself you haven't even accepted."With both hands on her shoulders he held her at arm's-length from him and looked long into her eyes, no longer cool but seemingly pervaded with a golden flush. The lids drooped and yet bravely did not droop as she returned his gaze. Then he fondly and solemnly drew her to him.
"And how about that hearth and saddle of your own?" he asked, a moment later.
"I well-nigh won to them. The grass house is my hearth, and the Martha my saddle, and--and look at all the trees I've planted, to say nothing of the sweet corn. And it's all your fault anyway. Imight never have loved you if you hadn't put the idea into my head.""There's the Nongassla coming in around the point with her boats out," Sheldon remarked irrelevantly. "And the Commissioner is on board. He's going down to San Cristoval to investigate that missionary killing. We're in luck, I must say.""I don't see where the luck comes in," she said dolefully. "We ought to have this evening all to ourselves just to talk things over. I've a thousand questions to ask you.""And it wouldn't have been a man-talk either," she added.
"But my plan is better than that." He debated with himself a moment. "You see, the Commissioner is the one official in the islands who can give us a license. And--there's the luck of it--Doctor Welshmere is here to perform the ceremony. We'll get married this evening."Joan recoiled from him in panic, tearing herself from his arms and going backward several steps. He could see that she was really frightened.
"I . . . I thought . . ." she stammered.
Then, slowly, the change came over her, and the blood flooded into her face in the same amazing blush he had seen once before that day. Her cool, level-looking eyes were no longer level-looking nor cool, but warmly drooping and just unable to meet his, as she came toward him and nestled in the circle of his arms, saying softly, almost in a whisper, -"I am ready," Dave."
