The Land of Promise Part 28

Nora caught her breath sharply, but her manner lost none of its lightness.

"I don't know what made you think that."

"Well, I don't know how you could have put it more plainly that my name was mud."

"Why didn't you refuse, then?"

"I guess I'm not the nervous sort, either," he remarked dryly over his teacup.

"_And_," Nora reminded him, "women are scarce in Manitoba."

"I've always fancied an English woman," he went on, ignoring her little thrust. "They make the best wives going when they've been licked into shape."

Nora showed her amus.e.m.e.nt frankly.

"Are you purposing to attempt that operation on me?"

"Well, you're clever. I guess a hint or two is about all you'll want."

"You embarra.s.s me when you pay me compliments."

"I'll take you round and show you the land to-morrow," he said, tilting back on his stool, to the imminent peril of his equilibrium. "I ain't done all the clearing yet, so there'll be plenty of work for the winter.

I want to have a hundred acres to sow next year. And then, if I get a good crop, I've a mind to take another quarter. You can't make it pay really without you've got half a section. And it's a tough proposition when you ain't got capital."

"I had no idea I was marrying a millionaire."

"Never you mind, my girl, you shan't live in a shack long, I promise you. It's the greatest country in the world. We only want three good crops and you shall have a brick house same as you lived in back home."

"I wonder what they're doing in England now."

"Well, I guess they're asleep."

"When I think of England I always think of it at tea time," began Nora, and then stopped short.

A wave of regret caught her throat. In spite of herself, the tears filled her eyes. She looked miserably at the cheap, ugly tea things on the makes.h.i.+ft table before her. Her husband watched her gravely.

Presently she went on, more to herself than to him:

"Miss Wickham had a beautiful old silver teapot, a George Second. She was awfully proud of it. And she was proud of her tea-set; it was old Worcester. And she wouldn't let anyone wash the tea things but----"

Again, her voice failed her. "And two or three times a week an old Indian judge came in to tea. And he used to talk to me about the East, the wonderful, beautiful East. He made me long to see it all--I who had never been anywhere. I've always loved history and books of travel more than anything else. There are a lot of them there in my box--that's what makes it so heavy--all about the beautiful places I was going to see later on with the money Miss Wickham promised me----" her glance took in the mean little room in all its unrelieved ugliness. "Oh, why did you make me think of it all?"

She bowed her head on the table for a moment. Taylor laid his hand gently on her arm.

"The past is dead and gone, my girl. We've got the future; it's ours."

She gently disengaged herself from his detaining hand and went over to the little window, looking out with eyes that saw other pictures than the window had to show.

"One never knows when one's well off, does one? It's madness to think of what's gone forever."

For several minutes there was silence, during which Nora recovered her self-control. Having wiped away her tears, she turned hack to him, smiling bravely. "I beg your pardon. You'll think me more foolish than I really am. I'm not the crying sort, I a.s.sure you. But I don't know, it all----"

"That's all right, I know you're not," he said roughly. "I wish we'd got a good drop of liquor here," he went on with the evident intention of changing the current of her thoughts, "so as we could drink one another's health. But as we _ain't_, you'd better give me a kiss instead."

"I'm not at all fond of kissing," said Nora coolly.

Frank grinned at her, his pipe stuck between his white teeth.

"It ain't, generally speaking, an acquired taste. I guess you must be peculiar."

"It looks like it," she said lightly.

"Come, my girl," he said, getting slowly up from his stool, "you didn't even kiss me after we was married."

"Isn't a hint enough for you?"--her tone was perfectly friendly. "Why do you insist on my saying everything in so many words? Why make me dot my i's and cross my t's, so to speak?"

"It seems to me it wants a few words to make it plain when a woman refuses to give her husband a kiss."

"Do sit down, there's a good fellow, and I'll tell you one or two things."

"That's terribly kind of you," he said, sinking into the rocker. "Have you any choice of seats?"

"Not now, since you've taken the only one that's tolerably comfortable.

I think there's nothing to choose between the others."

"Nothing, I should say."

"I think we'd better fix things up before we go any further," she said, resuming her stool.

"Sure."

"You gave me to understand very plainly that you wanted a wife in order to get a general servant without having to pay her wages. Wages are high, here in Canada."

"That was the way _you_ put it."

"Batching isn't very comfortable, you'll confess that?"

"I'll confess that, all right."

"You wanted someone to cook and bake for you, wash, sweep and mend. I offered to come and do all that for you. It never entered my head for an instant that there was any possibility of your expecting anything else of me."

"Then you're a d.a.m.ned fool, my girl."

He was perfectly good-natured. She would have preferred him to be a little angry. She would know how to cope with that, she thought. But she flared up a little herself.

"D'you mind not saying things like that to me?"

His smile widened. "I guess I'll have to say a good many things like that--or worse--before we've done."

"I asked you to marry me only because I couldn't stay in the shack otherwise."