Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/54

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CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE

it was Job; for Job had forgotten his toad, and he had come up into Ararat, wiggling and waggling at the secretary, and he took my dress in his teeth to shake it the way he does, and that tripped me, and I fell.

I should have gone clear down the tree-house steps, the whole length, but he caught me. And when he had caught me he did not let me go.

"I will not take it," he said, between his teeth. And he went as white as the moon. "You shall give it to me."

"I will never give it to you!" I cried.

"What if I held you here until you did?"

"I should hate and abhor you."

"You could n't hate me."

"When you speak like that, I despise you."

"No, you don't; you love me."

"I wish you a very good evening, Mr. Herwin."

"I wish you to be my wife, Miss Trent."

"I must decline the honor, sir."

"But I decline the declination. . . . You love me!"

"Do you think it is proper—keeping a girl out here at midnight, this way?"

"We will make it proper. We will tell the whole world to-morrow morning. I will wake your father up and tell him now, if you say so."

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