And I see when I looked in his
determined eyes that the time had come. His jaws were working, too, under
his beard, and I reckoned he'd got wind of Arthur and was there to say the
word at last. And I was right enough about Arthur, but cruel wrong about
the word.
"I'll ax you to step in the house," he said. "I've heard something."
"I hope it's interesting news," I answered. "Come in by all means,
Gregory. Always welcome. Will you drink a glass of fresh milk?"
For milk was his favourite beverage.
"No," he answered. "I don't take no milk under this roof no more."
So then I began to see there was something biting the man, though for my
life I couldn't guess what.
However, he soon told me.
He sat down, took off his hat, wiped his brow, blew his nose and then
spoke.
"I've just been having a tell with Minnie Parable--old Parable's
daughter," he said.
"Have you?" I said. "Would you call him old?"
"Be damned to his age," he answered. "That's neither here nor there. But
this I'd wish you to understand. I've respected you for a good few years
now."
"Why not?" I asked, rather short, for I didn't like his manner.
"No reason at all till half an hour agone," he replied. "But now I hear
that, while you well knew my feelings and my hopes and might have trusted
a man like me to speak when he saw his way, instead of following my lead
and remembering yourself and calling to mind the sort of woman such as I
had the right to expect, and waiting with patience and dignity for the
accepted hour, you be throwing all thought of me to the winds and rolling
your eyes on the men and axing them to tea, and conducting yourself in a
manner very unbecoming indeed for the woman I'd long hoped to marry.
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