to please
you, to make you like me! You'll believe that, won't you?" And he
held out his hands with a supplicating and impassioned gesture.

"Why can't we be friends? Try to be friends with me, Mary Virginia!
You would, if you only knew how much I love you. Why, I've loved you
ever since that first day I saw you, after you'd come back home. I was
going into the bank, and I turned, and there you were! You had on a
gray dress, and you wore violets, a big bunch of them. I can smell
them yet. God! It was all up with me! I was crazy about you from the
start, and it's been getting worse and worse ... worse and worse!

"You don't know all I mean to do for you, beauty! I'm going to give
you this little old world to play with. Nothing's too good for _you_.
Look at me! I'm not an old man yet--I've only just _begun_ to make
money for you. Now be a little kind to me. You've got to marry me, you
know. Look here: you kiss me good-night, just once, of your own free
will, and I swear you shall have anything under the sky you ask me
for. Do you want a string of pearls that will make yours look like a
child's playpretty? I'll hang a million dollars around that white
throat of yours!"

But there came into the girl's eyes that which gave him pause. They
stood staring at each other; and slowly the wine-dark flush faded from
his face and left him livid. Little dents came about his nose, and his
lips puckered as if the devil had pinched them together.

"No?" said he thickly, and his jaw hardened, and his eyes narrowed
under his square forehead. "No? You won't, eh? Too fine and proud? My
lady, you'll learn to kiss me when I tell you to, and glad enough of
the chance, before you and I finish with each other! Why, you--I--Oh,
good God! Why do you rouse the devil in me, when I only want to be
friends with you?"

But she, with a ghastly face, turned swiftly and with her head held
high walked out of the room, passed through the wide hall, and
ascended the stairs, without even bidding him goodnight. Let him take
his dismissal as he would--she could stand no more!

Once in her own room, Mary Virginia dismissed Nancy for the night. She
had to be alone, and the colored woman was an irrepressible magpie.
Furiously she scrubbed her hands, as if to remove the taint of his
touch. That he had dared! Her teeth chattered. She could barely save
herself from screaming aloud. She bathed her face, dashed some toilet
water over herself, and fell into a cha