“I don’t know.”
“Like what, Hilma?” he insisted.
“Like—like this?” she questioned. With a movement of infinite tenderness and affection she slid her arms around his neck, still crying a little.
The sensation of her warm body in his embrace, the feeling of her smooth, round arm, through the thinness of her sleeve, pressing against his cheek, thrilled Annixter with a delight such as he had never known. He bent his head and kissed her upon the nape of her neck, where the delicate amber tint melted into the thick, sweet smelling mass of her dark brown hair. She shivered a little, holding him closer, ashamed as yet to look up. Without speech, they stood there for a long minute, holding each other close. Then Hilma pulled away from him, mopping her tear-stained cheeks with the little moist ball of her handkerchief.
“What do you say? Is it a go?” demanded Annixter jovially.
“I thought I hated you all the time,” she said, and the velvety huskiness of her voice never sounded so sweet to him.
“And I thought it was that crockery smashing goat of a lout of a cowpuncher.”
“Delaney? The idea! Oh, dear! I think it must always have been you.”
“Since when, Hilma?” he asked, putting his arm around her. “Ah, but it is good to have you, my girl,” he exclaimed, delighted beyond words that she permitted this freedom. “Since when? Tell us all about it.”
“Oh, since always. It was ever so long before I came to think of you—to, well, to think about—I mean to remember—oh, you know what I mean. But when I did, oh, then!”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know—I haven’t thought—that way long enough to know.”
“But you said you thought it must have been me always.”
“I know; but that was different—oh, I’m all mixed up. I’m so nervous and trembly now. Oh,” she cried suddenly, her face overcast with a look of earnestness and great seriousness, both her hands catching at his wrist, “Oh, you will be good to me, now, won’t you? I’m only a little, little child in so many ways, and I’ve given myself to you, all in a minute, and I can’t go back of it now, and it’s for always. I don’t know how it happened or why. Sometimes I think I didn’t wish it, but now it’s done, and I am glad and happy. But now if you weren’t good to me—oh, think of how it would be with me. You are strong, and big, and rich, and I am only a servant of yours, a little nobody, but I’ve given all I had to you—myself—and you must be so good to me now. Always remember that. Be good to me and be gentle and kind to me in little things—in everything, or you will break my heart.”
Annixter took her in his arms. He was speechless. No words that he had at his command seemed adequate. All he could say was:
“That’s all right, little girl. Don’t you be frightened. I’ll take care of you. That’s all right, that’s all right.”
For a long time they sat there under the shade of the great trestle, their arms about each other, speaking only at intervals. An hour passed. The buckskin, finding no feed to her taste, took the trail stablewards, the bridle dragging. Annixter let her go. Rather than to take his arm from around Hilma’s waist he would have lost his whole stable. At last, however, he bestirred himself and began to talk. He thought it time to formulate some plan of action.
“Well, now, Hilma, what are we going to do?”
“Do?” she repeated. “Why, must we do anything? Oh, isn’t this enough?”
“There’s better ahead,” he went on. “I want to fix you up somewhere where you can have a bit of a home all to yourself. Let’s see; Bonneville wouldn’t do. There’s always a lot of yaps about there that know us, and they would begin to cackle first off. How about San Francisco. We might go up next week and have a look around. I would find rooms you could take somewheres, and we would fix ’em up as lovely as how-do-you-do.”
“Oh, but why go away from Quien Sabe?” she protested. “And, then, so soon, too. Why must we have a wedding trip, now that you are so busy? Wouldn’t it be better—oh, I tell you, we could go to Monterey after we were married, for a little week, where mamma’s people live, and then come back here to the ranch house and settle right down where we are and let me keep house for you. I wouldn’t even want a single servant.”
Annixter heard and his face grew troubled.
“Hum,” he said, “I see.”
He gathered up a handful of pebbles and began snapping them carefully into the creek. He fell thoughtful. Here was a phase of the affair he had not planned in the least. He had supposed all the time that Hilma took his meaning. His old suspicion that she was trying to get a hold on him stirred again for a moment. There was no good of such talk as that. Always these female girls seemed crazy to get married, bent on complicating the situation.
“Isn’t that best?” said Hilma, glancing at him.
“I don’t know,” he muttered gloomily.
“Well, then, let’s not. Let’s come right back to Quien Sabe without going to Monterey. Anything that you want I want.”
“I hadn’t thought of it in just that way,” he observed.
“In what way, then?”
“Can’t we—can’t we wait about this marrying business?”
“That’s just it,” she said gayly. “I said it was too soon. There would be so much to do between whiles. Why not say at the end of the summer?”
“Say what?”
“Our marriage, I mean.”
“Why get married, then? What’s the good of all that fuss about it? I don’t go anything upon a minister puddling round in my affairs. What’s the difference, anyhow? We understand each other. Isn’t
