第117章

"It must be an unusual experience," she answered.

"Well, it is--sort of," he said, but in a manner curiously free from fatuous swagger."I've had luck that way.I guess it's been because I'd GOT to make friends so as I could earn a living.It seems sort of queer to know that some one's got a grouch against me that--that Ican't get away with."

She looked up the avenue to see how much farther they must walk together, since she was not "a sprinter" and could not get away from him.She thought she caught a glimpse through the trees of a dog-cart driven by a groom, and hoped she had not mistaken and that it was driving in their direction.

"It must, indeed," she said, "though I am not sure I quite understand what a grouch is.""When you've got a grouch against a fellow," he explained impersonally, "you want to get at him.You want to make him feel like a mutt; and a mutt's the worst kind of a fool.You've got one against me."She looked before her between narrowed lids and faintly smiled--the most disagreeable smile she was capable of.And yet for some too extraordinary reason he went on.But she had seen men go on before this when all the odds were against them.Sometimes their madness took them this way.

"I knew there was a lot against me when I came here," he persisted."Ishould have been a fool if I hadn't.I knew when you came that I was up against a pretty hard proposition; but I thought perhaps if I got busy and SHOWED you--you've got to SHOW a person--""Showed me what?" she asked contemptuously.

"Showed you--well--me," he tried to explain.

"You!"

"And that I wanted to be friends," he added candidly.

Was the man mad? Did he realize nothing? Was he too thick of skin even to see?

"Friends! You and I?" The words ought to have scorched him, pachyderm though he was.

"I thought you'd give me a chance--a sort of chance--"She stopped short on the avenue.

"You did?"

She had not been mistaken.The dog-cart had rounded the far-off curve and was coming toward them.And the man went on talking.

"You've felt every minute that I was in a place that didn't belong to me.You know that if the man that it did belong to was here, you'd be here with him.You felt as if I'd robbed him of it--and I'd robbed you.It was your home--yours.You hated me too much to think of anything else.Suppose-- suppose there was a way I could give it back to you--make it your home again."His voice dropped and was rather unsteady.The fool, the gross, brutal, vulgar, hopeless fool! He thought this was the way to approach her, to lead her to listen to his proposal of marriage! Not for a second did she guess that they were talking at cross purposes.She did not know that as he kept himself steady under her contemptuousness he was thinking that Ann would have to own that he had been up against it hard and plenty while the thing was going on.

"I'm always up against it when I'm talking to you," he said."You get me rattled.There's things I want to talk about and ask you.Suppose you give me a chance, and let us start out by being sort of friends.""I am staying in your house," she answered in a deadly voice, "and Icannot go away because my mother will not let me.You can force yourself upon me, if you choose, because I cannot help it; but understand once for all that I will not give you your ridiculous chance.And I will not utter one word to you when I can avoid it."He was silent for a moment and seemed to be thinking rather deeply.

She realized now that he saw the nearing dog-cart.

"You won't.Then it's up to me," he said.Then with a change of tone, he added, "I'll stop the cart and tell the man to drive you to the house.I'm not going to force myself on you, as you call it.It'd be no use.Perhaps it'll come all right in the end."He made a sign to the groom, who hastened his horse's pace and drew up when he reached them.

"Take this lady back to the house," he said.

The groom, who was a new arrival, began to prepare to get down and give up his place.

"You needn't do that," said Tembarom.

"Won't you get up and take the reins, sir?" the man asked uncertainly.

"No.I can't drive.You'll have to do it.I'll walk."And to the groom's amazement, they left him standing under the trees looking after them.

"It's up to me," he was saying."The whole durned thing's up to me."