The Land of Promise Part 29

"You asked me to marry you because you was in the h.e.l.l of a temper," he retorted. "You were mad clean through. You wanted to get away from Ed's farm right then and there and you didn't care what you did so long as you quit. But you was darned sorry for what you'd done by the time you'd got your trunk packed."

"I don't know that you have any reason for thinking that," she said stiffly.

"I've got sense. Besides, when you opened the door when I went up and knocked, you was as white as a sheet. You'd have given anything you had to say you'd changed your mind, but your d.a.m.ned pride wouldn't let you."

"I wouldn't have stayed longer in that house for anything in the world,"

said Nora with pa.s.sion.

"There you are; that's just what I have been telling you," he said, nodding his head. "And this morning, when I came for you at the Y. W. C. A., you wanted bad to say you wouldn't marry me. When you shook hands with me your hand was like ice. You tried to speak the words, but they wouldn't come."

"After all, one isn't married every day of one's life, is one? I admit I was nervous for the moment."

"If I hadn't shown you the license and the ring, I guess you wouldn't have done it. You hadn't the nerve to back out of it then."

"I hadn't slept a wink all night. I kept on turning it over in my mind.

I _was_ frightened at what I'd done. I didn't know a soul in Winnipeg. I hadn't anywhere to go. I had four dollars in my pocket. I _had_ to go on with it."

"Well, you took pretty good stock of me in the train on the way here, I guess," he laughed, pacing up and down the room.

"What makes you think so?" asked Nora, who had recovered her coolness.

"Well, I felt you was looking at me a good deal while I was asleep," he jeered. "It wasn't hard to see that you was turning me over in your mind. What conclusion did you come to?"

Nora evaded the question for the moment.

"You see, I lived all these years with an old lady. I know very little about men."

"I guessed that."

"I came to the conclusion that you were a decent fellow and I thought you would be kind to me."

"Bouquets are just flying round! Have you got anything more to say to me?" he asked, seating himself once more in his chair.

"No, I think not."

"Then just get me my tobacco pouch, will you? I guess you'll find it in the pocket of my coat."

With narrowed eyes, he watched her first hesitate, and then bring it to him.

"Here you are." Her tone was crisp.

"I thought you was going to tell me I could darned well get it myself,"

he laughed.

"I don't very much like to be ordered about," she said smoothly; "I didn't realize it was one of your bad habits."

"You never paid much attention to me or my habits till to-day, I reckon."

"I was always polite to you."

"Oh, very! But I was the hired man, and you'd never let me forget it.

You thought yourself a darned sight better than me, because you could play the piano and speak French. But we ain't got a piano and there ain't anyone as speaks French nearer than Winnipeg."

"I don't just see what you're driving at."

"Parlor tricks ain't much good on the prairie. They're like dollar bills up in Hudson Bay country. Tobacco's the only thing you can trade with an Esquimaux. You can't cook very well, you don't know how to milk a cow; why, you can't even harness a horse."

"Are you regretting your bargain already?"

"No," he said, going over to the shelf in search of the matches, "I guess I can teach you. But if I was you"--he paused, the lighted match in his fingers, to look at her--"I wouldn't put on any airs. We'll get on O. K., I guess, when we've shaken down."

"You'll find I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself," she said with emphasis, speaking each word slowly. She returned his steady gaze and felt a thrill of victory when he looked away.

"When two people live in a shack," he went on as if she had not spoken, "there's got to be a deal of give and take on both sides. As long as you do what I tell you you'll be all right."

A sort of an angry smile crossed Nora's face.

"It's unfortunate that when anyone _tells_ me to do a thing, I have an irresistible desire not to do it."

"I guess I tumbled to that. You must get over it."

"You've spoken to me once or twice in a way I don't like. I think we shall get on better if you _ask_ me to do things."

"Don't forget that I can _make_ you do them," he said brutally.

"How?" Really, he was amusing!

"Well, I'm stronger than you are."

"A man can hardly use force in his dealings with a woman," she reminded him.

"O-o-o-oh?"

"You seem surprised."

"What's going to prevent him?"

"Don't be so silly," she retorted as she turned to look once more out of the window. But her hands were clammy and, somehow, even though her back was turned toward him, she knew that he was smiling.

CHAPTER XIII

How much time elapsed before he spoke she had no means of knowing; probably, at most, two or three minutes. But to the woman gazing out blindly through the cobweb-covered window into the night, it might well have been hours. For some illogical reason, which she could not have explained to herself, she had the feeling that the victory in the coming struggle would lie with the one who kept silent the longer. To break the nerve-wrecking spell would be a betrayal of weakness.

None the less, she had arrived at the point when, the tension on her own nerves becoming too great, she felt she must scream, drive her clenched hand through the gla.s.s of the window, or perform some other act of hysterical violence; then he spoke, and in the ordinary tone of daily life.