I'm not asking you
to marry me--not at this moment."
Ann took a fresh hold of herself.
"That's just as well," she said, trying to match his coolness with her own.
"As I told you--you don't really know anything about me. I may"--forcing a
smile--"have a perfectly horrid character, for all you can tell."
"You may," he replied indifferently. "It wouldn't worry me in the least
if you had." Then, with a strange intensity, he went on: "I shouldn't let
anything that had happened in the past stand between me and the woman I
wanted--if I wanted her badly enough."
Ann stiffened.
"I think you're talking very funnily," she observed. "I don't understand
you at all."
"Don't you?" Once more that swift, searching glance of the brilliant blue
eyes. "In plain English, then, it wouldn't matter in the slightest to me
what the woman I loved had done in the past. She may have sown her little
crop of wild oats if she likes. The past is hers. The future would be mine.
And I'd take care of that"--grimly.
"This is all very interesting, of course," said Ann repressively. "But I
don't see how it affects me."
"Do you really mean that?" He rapped out the question sharply--so sharply
that she almost jumped.
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