father and I had a frightful row.
"I was starting out to come to you, and he caught me. He all but disowned me. I came right on—I told him I was coming. And on the way here I thought—I knew I would have to tell you what had happened.
"And I thought if you were secretly sorry—for last night—when you heard about father and I—you would feel that you had to stand by me anyway! And then I would never know if you really—So I had to find out, first."
This confused explanation was perfectly clear to Ambrose.
"Will you always be doubting me?" he asked wistfully. "Can't you believe what you see?"
She crept under his arm. "It was so sudden!" she murmured. "When I am not with you my heart fails me. How can I be sure?"
He undertook to assure her with what eloquence his heart lent his tongue. The feeling was rarer than the words.
"How wonderful," said Ambrose dreamily, "for two to feel the same toward each other! I always thought that women, well, just allowed men to love them."
"You dear innocent!" she whispered. "If you knew! Women are not supposed to give anything away! It makes men draw back. It makes them insufferable."
"It makes me humble," said Ambrose.
"You boy!" she breathed.
"I'm years older than you," he said.
"Women's hearts are born old," said Colina; "men's never grow out of babyhood."
Her head was lying back on the thick of his arm.
"Your throat is as lovely—as lovely as pearl!" he whispered, brooding over her.
The exquisite throat trembled with laughter.
"You're coming out!" she said.
"I don't care!" said Ambrose. "You're as beautiful as—what is the most beautiful thing I know?—as beautiful as a morning in June up North."
"I don't know which I like better," she murmured.
"Of what?" he asked.
"To have you praise me or abuse me. Both are so sweet!"
"Do you know," he said, "I am wondering this minute if I am dreaming!
I'm afraid to breathe hard for fear of waking up."
She smiled enchantingly.
"Kiss me!" she whispered. "These are real lips."
"Sit up," he said presently, with a sigh, "We must talk hard sense to each other. What the devil are we going to do?"
She leaned against his shoulder.
"Whatever you decide," she said mistily.
"What did your father say to you?" asked Ambrose.
She shuddered. "Hideous quarrelling!" she said. "I have the temper of a devil, Ambrose!"
"I don't care," he said.
"When I told him where I was going he took me back in the library and started in," she went on. "He was so angry he could scarcely speak. If he had let it go it wouldn't have been so bad. But to try to make believe he wasn't angry! His hypocrisy disgusted me.
"To go on about my own good and all that, and all the time he was just plain mad! I taunted him until he was almost in a state of ungovernable fury. He would not mention you until I forced him to.
"He said I must give him my word never to see you or speak to you again. I refused, of course. He threatened to lock me up. He said things about you that put me beside myself. We said ghastly things to each other. We are very much alike. You'd better think twice before you marry into such a family, Ambrose."
"I take my chance," he said.
"I'm sorry now," Colina went on. "I know he is, too. Poor old fellow!
I have you."
"You mustn't break with him yet," said Ambrose anxiously.
"I know. But how can I go back and humble myself?"
"He'll meet you half-way."
"If—if we could only get in the dugout and go now!" she breathed.
He did not answer. She saw him turn pale.
"Wouldn't it be the best way," she murmured, "since it's got to be anyway?"
He drew a long breath and shook his head.
"I wouldn't take you now," he said doggedly.
"Of course not!" she said quickly. "I was only joking. But why?" she added weakly. Her hand crept into his.
"It wouldn't be fair," he said, frowning. "It would be taking too much from you."
"Too much!" she murmured, with an obscure smile.
Ambrose struggled with the difficulty of explaining what he meant. "I never do anything prudent myself. I hate it. But I can't let you chuck everything—without thinking what you are doing. You ought to stay home a while—and be sure."
"It isn't going to be so easy," she said, "quarreling continually."
"I sha'n't see you again until I come for you," said Ambrose. "And it's useless to write letters from Moultrie to Enterprise. I'm out of the way. Why can't the question of me be dropped between you and your father?"
"Think of living on from month to month without a word! It will be ghastly!" she cried.
"You've only known me two days," he said sagely. "I could not leave such a gap as that."
"How coldly you can talk about it!" she cried rebelliously.
Ambrose frowned again. "When you call me cold you shut me up," he said quietly.
"But if you do not make a fuss about me every minute," she said naïvely, "it shames me because I am so foolish about you."
Ambrose laughed suddenly.
There followed another interlude of celestial silliness.
This time it was Colina who withdrew herself from him.
"Ah," she said with a catch of the breath, "every minute of this is making it harder. I shall want to die when you leave me."
Ambrose attempted to take her in his arms again.
"No," she insisted. "Let us try to be sensible. We haven't decided yet what we're going to do."
"I'm going home," said Ambrose, "to work like a galley-slave."
"It is so far," she murmured.
"I'll find some way of letting you hear from me. Twice before the winter sets in I'll send a messenger. And you, you keep a little book and write in it whenever you think of me, and send it back by my messenger."
"A little book won't hold it all," she said naïvely.
"Meanwhile I'll be making a place for you. I couldn't take you to
Moultrie."
She asked why.
"Eva, Peter's wife," he explained. "In a way Peter is my boss, you see. It would be a horrible situation."
"I see," said Colina. "But if there was no help for it I could."
"Ah, you're too good to me!" he cried. "But it won't be necessary. Peter and I have always intended to open other posts. I'll take the first one, and you and I will start on our own. Think of it! It makes me silly with happiness!"
Upon this foundation they raised a shining castle in the air.
"I must go," said Colina finally, "or father will be equipping an armed force to take me."
"You must go," he agreed, but weakly.
They repeated it at intervals