d
it."

"Oh, you would love me." She looked across under her long lashes, not as
boldly as she would have liked, and her gaze fell before his. "I haven
t heard before that that was in the compact you proposed. I don't think
you have remembered to mention it."

He swung from the saddle and put a hand to her bridle rein.

"Get down," he ordered.

"Why?"

"Because I say so. Get down."

She looked down at him, a man out of a thousand and for her one out of a
hundred million. Before she was conscious of willing it she stood beside
him. He trailed the reins of the ponies, and in two strides came back to
her.

"What--do you--want?"

"I want you, girl." His arm swept round her, and he held her while he
looked down into her shining eyes. "So I haven't told you that I love
you. Did you need to be told?"

"We must go on," she murmured weakly. "Frances and Lieutenant
O'Connor--"

"--Have their own love-affairs to attend to.

"We'll manage ours and not intrude."

"They might think--"

He laughed in deep delight, "--that we love each other. They're welcome
to the thought. I haven't told you that I love you, eh? I tell you now.
It's my last trump, and right here I table it. I'm no desert poet, but I
love you from that dark crown of yours to those little feet that tap the
floor so impatient sometimes. I love you all the time, no matter what
mood you're in--when you flash dark angry eyes at me and when you laugh
in that slow, understanding way nobody else in God's world has the trick
of. Makes no difference to me whether you're glad or mad, I want you
just the same. That's the reason why I'm going to make you love me."

"You can't do it." Her voice was very low and not quite steady.

"Why not--I'll show you."

"But you can't--for a good reason."

"Put a name to it."

"Because. Oh, you big blind man--because I love you already." She
burlesqued his drawl with a little joyous laugh: "I reckon if you're
right set on it I'll have to marry you, Val Collins."

His arm tightened about her as if he would hold her against the whole
world. His ardent eyes possessed hers. She felt herself grow faint with
a poignant delight. Her lips met his slowly in their first kiss.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bucky O'Connor, by William MacLeod Raine

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUCKY O'CONNOR ***

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