f your doing.
The first time, when I threw that chip, you pulled a gun on me--" The
voice of Billy Louise squeezed down to a wisp of a whisper. Her eyes
were remorseful. "Oh, Ward, I didn't mean to--to--"

"It's all right. I've got it coming." It was as if a mask had dropped
before Ward's features. Even his eyes looked strange and hard in that
face of set muscles, though the thin, bitter lips and quivering
nostrils showed that there was feeling behind it all. "I see where
you're right, William. You needn't be afraid; I won't make love again."

Billy Louise looked as though she wanted to beat something--herself,
most likely. She stared as they stare who watch from the dock while a
loved one slips farther and farther away on a voyage from which there
may be no return; only Billy Louise was not one to watch and do nothing
else.

"Now, Ward, don't be silly." The fright in her voice was overlaid with
a sharpened tenderness. "You know perfectly well I didn't mean that.
You're only proving that in the human problem you're raised to-- Stop
looking darning-needles at that coffee-pot and listen here!" Billy
Louise leaned over the table and caught at his nearest hand, which was
a closed fist. With her own little fingers digging persistently into
the tensed muscles, she pried the fist open. "Ward, behave yourself,
or I'll go straight home!" She held his straightened fingers in her
own and drew a sharp breath because they lay inert--dead things so far
as any response came to her clasp; the first and middle fingers
yellowed a little from cigarettes, the nails soft and pink from much
immersion in water. A tale they told, if Billy Louise had been paying
attention.

"Ward, you certainly are--the limit! You know as well as I do that
that doesn't make a particle of difference. If I had been a boy
instead of a girl, and had bucked the world for a living, I'd probably
have done worse; and, anyway, it doesn't matter!" Her voice rose as if
she were growing desperate. "I--I--like you--to pieces, Ward, and
I'd--I'd rather marry you--than anyone else. But I don't want to think
about that for a long while. I don't want to be engaged, or--or any
different than the way we've been. It was good to be just pals. It
was like my pretend Ward. I--I always wanted him--to love me, but I
wouldn't play that he--told me, Ward. Oh, don't you see?" She shut
her teeth hard together, because if she hadn't she would have been
cryin