"Sure."
The man sighed in relief.
"That"s made a heap of difference," he cried. Then he took a handkerchief from his pocket, removed his panama and mopped his forehead. He gave a big gulp in the midst of the process, and spoke as though he were defying an enemy. "Will you marry me?" he demanded, and sat up glaring at her, with his hat and handkerchief poised in either hand.
The girl gave him a quick look. Then she flung herself back in her chair and laughed.
"We--we are talking of troubles," she protested.
Bill replaced his hat, and restored his handkerchief to its pocket.
"Troubles? Troubles? Isn"t that trouble enough to start with?
It"s--it"s the root of it all," he declared. "I"m--I"m just crazy about you. And every time I try to think about Charlie and the police, and--and the scallywags of the valley, I--I find you mixed up with it all, and get so tangled up that I don"t know where I am, or--or why.
Say, have you ever been crazy about anybody? Some feller, for instance? It"s the worst worrying muddle ever happened. First you"re pleased--then you cuss them. Then you sort of sit dreaming all sorts of fool things that haven"t any sense at all. Then you want to make rhymes and things about eyes, and flowers, and moons, and feet, and laces and bits. You feel all over that everything else has got no sense to it, and is just so much waste of time thinking about it. You sort of feel that all men are fools but yourself, and other females aren"t women, but just images. You sort of get the notion the world"s on a pivot, and that pivot"s just yourself, and if you weren"t there there"d be a bust up, and most everything would get chasing glory, and you don"t care a darn, anyway, if they did. Say, when you get clean crazy about anybody, same as I am about you, you find yourself hating everybody that comes near them. You get notions that every man is conspiring to tell the girl what a perfect fool you are, that they"re worrying to boost you right out with her. You hate her, because you think she thinks you are a simpleton, and can"t see your good points, which are so obvious to yourself. You hate yourself, you hate life, you hate the sunlight and the trees, and your food, and--and everything. And you wouldn"t have things different, or stop making such a fool of yourself, no--not if h.e.l.l froze over. Will--will you marry me?"
Helen"s humor suddenly burst the bonds of all restraint. She sat there laughing until she nearly choked.
Bill waited with a patience that seemed inexhaustible. Then, as the girl"s mirth began to lessen, he put his question again with dogged persistence.
"Will you marry me?"
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Of all the----"
"Will you marry me?" the man persisted, his great face flushing.
Helen abruptly sobered. The masterful tone somehow sent a delighted thrill through her nerves.
She nodded.
"Of course I will. I--intended to from the first moment I saw your big, funny face with Stanley----"
"You mean that, Hel? You really--meant to marry me? You did?"
The man"s happy excitement was something not easily to be forgotten.
He sprang from his chair, reached out his powerful hands, caught the girl about the waist, and picked her up in his arms as he might have picked up a child. His great bear-like hug was a monstrous thing to endure, but Helen was more than willing to endure it, as also his kisses, which he rained upon her happy, laughing face.
But the girl"s sense of the fitness of things soon came to her rescue.
The ridiculousness, the undignified figure she must appear, held in her great lover"s arms, set her struggling to free herself, and, in a few moments, he set her once more upon her feet, and stood laughing down into her blushing face.
"Say," he cried, with a great laugh, "I don"t care a cuss if my brains never hatch out. You"re going to be my wife. You, the girl I"m crazy to death about. Fyles and all the rest can go hang. Gee!"
Helen looked up at him. Then she smoothed out her ruffled frock, and patted her hair into its place.
"Well," she cried, with a happy laugh, "I"ve heard some queer proposals from the boys of this valley when they were drunk, but for a sober, educated man, I think you"ve made the funniest proposal that any one ever listened to. Oh, Bill, Bill, you"ve done a foolish thing.
I"m a shameless man-hunter. I came out west to find a husband, and I"ve found one. I wanted to marry you all along. I meant to marry you."
Bill"s laugh rang out in a great guffaw.
"Bully!" he cried. "What"s the use of marrying a girl who doesn"t want to marry you?"
"But she ought to pretend--at first."
"Not on your life. No pretense for me, Hel. Give me the girl who"s honest enough to love me, and let me know it."
"Bill! How--dare you? How dare you say I loved you and told you so?
I"ve--I"ve a good mind not to marry----Say, Bill, you are a--joke.
Now, sit right down, and tell me all about those--those other things worrying you."
In a moment a shadow crossed the man"s cheerful face. But he obediently resumed his seat, and somehow, when Helen sat down, their chairs were as close together as their manufacturer had made possible.
"It"s Charlie--Charlie, and the police," said Bill, in a despondent tone. "And Kate, too. I don"t know. Say, Hel, what"s--what"s going to happen? Fyles is hot after Charlie. Charlie don"t care a curse. But there"s something scaring him that bad he"s nearly crazy. Then there"s Kate. He saw Kate talking to Fyles, and he got madder than--h.e.l.l. And now he"s gone off to O"Brien"s, and it don"t even take any thinking to guess what for. I tell you he"s so queer I can"t do a thing with him.
I"m not smart enough. I could just break him in my two hands if I took hold of him to keep him home and out of trouble, but what"s the use?
He"s crazy about Kate, he"s crazy about drink, he"s crazy about everything, but keeping clear of the law. That"s what I came to tell you about--that, and to fix up about getting married."
The man"s words left a momentary dilemma in the girl"s mind. For a moment she was at a loss how to answer him. It seemed impossible to accept seriously his tale of anxiety and worry, and yet----. The same tale from any other would have seemed different. But coming from Bill, and just when she was so full of an almost childish happiness at the thought that this great creature loved her, and wanted to marry her, it took her some moments to reduce herself to a condition of judicial calm, sufficient to obtain the full significance of his anxious complaint.
When at last she spoke her eyes were serious, so serious that Bill wondered at it. He had never seen them like that before.
"It"s dreadful," she said in a low tone. "Dreadful."
Bill jumped at the word.
"Dreadful? My G.o.d, it"s awful when you think he"s my brother, and--and Kate"s your sister. I can"t see ahead. I can"t see where things are--are drifting. That"s the devil of it. I wish to goodness they"d given me less beef and more brain," he finished up helplessly.
Helen displayed no inclination to laugh. Somehow now that this simple man was here, now that the responsibility of him had devolved upon her, a delightful feeling of gentle motherliness toward him rose up in her heart, and made her yearn to help him. It was becoming quite easy to take him seriously.
"P"r"aps it"s a good thing you"ve got all that--beef. P"r"aps it"s for the best, you"re so--so strong, and so ready to help. You can"t see ahead. Neither can I. Maybe no one can, but--Fyles. Suppose you and I were standing at the foot of a cliff--a big, high cliff, very dangerous, very dreadful, and some one we both loved was climbing its face, and we saw them reach a point where it looked impossible to go on, or turn back. What could we do? I"ll tell you. We could remain standing there looking on, praying to Providence that they might get through, and holding ourselves ready to bear a hand when opportunity offered, and, failing that, do our utmost to _break their fall_."
Bill"s appreciation suddenly illuminated his ingenuous face.
"Say," he cried admiringly. "You"ve hit it. Sure, we can"t climb up and help. It would mean disaster to both, with no one left to help.
Say, I"m glad I"m big and strong. That"s it, we"ll stand--by. You"ll think, and I"ll do what you tell me. By Jing! That"s made everything different. We"ll stand by, and break their fall. I could never have thought of that--I couldn"t, sure."
It was Helen"s turn to display enthusiasm. It was an enthusiasm inspired by her lover"s acceptance of her suggestion.
"But we"re not going to just watch and watch and do nothing. We must keep on Fyles"s trail. We must keep close behind Charlie, and when we see the fall coming on we must be ready to thrust out a hand. You never know, we may beat the whole game in spite of Charlie. We may be able to save him in spite of himself. No harm must come to Kate through him. I can"t see where it can come, except--that he is mad about her, and she is mad about--some one else."
"Fyles?" Bill hazarded.
Helen looked around at him in amused admiration. She nodded.
"You"re getting too clever for me. You will be thinking for us both soon."
Bill denied the accusation enthusiastically.
"Never," he exclaimed. And after that he drifted into a lover"s rhapsody of his own inferiority and unworthiness.
Thus, for a while, the more serious cares were set aside for that brief lover"s paradise when two people find their focus filled to overflowing with that precious Self, which we are told always to deny.