anyway? Yet, if he had--
At this point of her musings the lawyer, seeing the flushed cheeks and
softened glance, believed his moment had come, and resolved to use it.
His passion made him forget that it was possible to go too fast.
"Miss Conklin," he began seriously, "if you'd join with me there's
nothin' we two couldn't do, nothin'! They call me the first lawyer in
the State, and I guess I'll get to Washington soon; but with you to help
me I'd be there before this year's out. As the wife of a Member of
Congress, you would show them all the way. I'm rich already; that is, I
can do whatever you want, and it's a shame for such genius as yours, and
such talent, to be hidden here among people who don't know how to value
you properly. In New York or in Washington you'd shine; become a social
power," and as the words "New York" caused the girl to look at him with
eager attention, he added, overcome by the foretaste of approaching
triumph: "Miss Loo, I love you; you've seen that, for you notice
everythin'. I know I'm not young, but I can be kinder and more faithful
than any young man, and," here he slipped his arm round her waist, "I
guess all women want to be loved, don't they? Will you let me love you,
Loo, as my wife?"
The girl shrank away from him nervously. Perhaps the fact of being in a
buggy recalled her rides with George; or the caress brought home to her
the difference between the two men. However that may be, when she
answered, it was with full self-possession:
"I guess what you say's about right, and I like you. But I don't want to
marry--anyway not yet. Of course I'd like to help you, and I'd like to
live in New York; but--I can't make up my mind all at once. You must
wait. If you really care for me, that can't be hard."
"Yes, it's hard," Barkman replied, "very hard to feel uncertain of
winning the only woman I can ever love. But I don't want to press you,"
he added, after a pause, "I rely on you; you know best, and I'll do just
what you wish."
"Well, then," she resumed, mollified by his humility, "you'll go back to
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