e would be only a brief diversion. There is that magnificent Bob,
eating his head off in the stable. You would buy me a beautiful
mansion and leave me in it to yawn my head off, or cry my eyes out
because of my helplessness and inability to save you. This disease of
business would be corroding you and marring you all the time. You play
it as you have played everything else, as in Alaska you played the life
of the trail. Nobody could be permitted to travel as fast and as far
as you, to work as hard or endure as much. You hold back nothing; you
put all you've got into whatever you are doing."
"Limit is the sky," he grunted grim affirmation.
"But if you would only play the lover-husband that way--"
Her voice faltered and stopped, and a blush showed in her wet cheeks as
her eyes fell before his.
"And now I won't say another word," she added. "I've delivered a whole
sermon."
She rested now, frankly and fairly, in the shelter of his arms, and
both were oblivious to the gale that rushed past them in quicker and
stronger blasts. The big downpour of rain had not yet come, but the
mist-like squalls were more frequent. Daylight was openly perplexed,
and he was still perplexed when he began to speak.
"I'm stumped. I'm up a tree. I'm clean flabbergasted, Miss Mason--or
Dede, because I love to call you that name. I'm free to confess
there's a mighty big heap in what you say. As I understand it, your
conclusion is that you'd marry me if I hadn't a cent and if I wasn't
getting fat. No, no; I'm not joking. I acknowledge the corn, and
that's just my way of boiling the matter down and summing it up. If I
hadn't a cent, and if I was living a healthy life with all the time in
the world to love you and be your husband instead of being awash to my
back teeth in business and all the rest--why, you'd marry me.
"That's all as clear as print, and you're correcter than I ever guessed
before. You've sure opened my eyes a few. But I'm stuck. What can I
do? My business has sure roped, thrown, and branded me. I'm tied hand
and foot, and I can't get up and meander over green pastures. I'm like
the man that got the bear by the tail. I can't let go; and I want you,
and I've got to let go to get you.
"I don't know what to do, but something's sure got to happen--I can't
lose you. I just can't. And I'm not going to. Why, you're running
business a close second right now. Business never kept me awake nights.
"You'v
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