“I see that dog has turned up,” he announced with brisk cheerfulness. “That Irish setter I was asking about.”
Hilma, a swift, pink flush deepening the delicate rose of her cheeks, did not reply, except by nodding her head. She flung the tablecloth out from under her arms across the table, spreading it smooth, with quick little caresses of her hands. There was a moment’s silence. Then Annixter said:
“Here’s a letter for you.” He laid it down on the table near her, and Hilma picked it up. “And see here, Miss Hilma,” Annixter continued, “about that—this morning—I suppose you think I am a first-class mucker. If it will do any good to apologise, why, I will. I want to be friends with you. I made a bad mistake, and started in the wrong way. I don’t know much about women people. I want you to forget about that—this morning, and not think I am a galoot and a mucker. Will you do it? Will you be friends with me?”
Hilma set the plate and coffee cup by Annixter’s place before answering, and Annixter repeated his question. Then she drew a deep, quick breath, the flush in her cheeks returning.
“I think it was—it was so wrong of you,” she murmured. “Oh! you don’t know how it hurt me. I cried—oh, for an hour.”
“Well, that’s just it,” returned Annixter vaguely, moving his head uneasily. “I didn’t know what kind of a girl you were—I mean, I made a mistake. I thought it didn’t make much difference. I thought all females were about alike.”
“I hope you know now,” murmured Hilma ruefully. “I’ve paid enough to have you find out. I cried—you don’t know. Why, it hurt me worse than anything I can remember. I hope you know now.”
“Well, I do know now,” he exclaimed.
“It wasn’t so much that you tried to do—what you did,” answered Hilma, the single deep swell from her waist to her throat rising and falling in her emotion. “It was that you thought that you could—that anybody could that wanted to—that I held myself so cheap. Oh!” she cried, with a sudden sobbing catch in her throat, “I never can forget it, and you don’t know what it means to a girl.”
“Well, that’s just what I do want,” he repeated. “I want you to forget it and have us be good friends.”
In his embarrassment, Annixter could think of no other words. He kept reiterating again and again during the pauses of the conversation:
“I want you to forget it. Will you? Will you forget it—that—this morning, and have us be good friends?”
He could see that her trouble was keen. He was astonished that the matter should be so grave in her estimation. After all, what was it that a girl should be kissed? But he wanted to regain his lost ground.
“Will you forget it, Miss Hilma? I want you to like me.”
She took a clean napkin from the sideboard drawer and laid it down by the plate.
“I—I do want you to like me,” persisted Annixter. “I want you to forget all about this business and like me.”
Hilma was silent. Annixter saw the tears in her eyes.
“How about that? Will you forget it? Will you—will—will you like me?”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said.
“No what? You won’t like me? Is that it?”
Hilma, blinking at the napkin through her tears, nodded to say, Yes, that was it. Annixter hesitated a moment, frowning, harassed and perplexed.
“You don’t like me at all, hey?”
At length Hilma found her speech. In her low voice, lower and more velvety than ever, she said:
“No—I don’t like you at all.”
Then, as the tears suddenly overpowered her, she dashed a hand across her eyes, and ran from the room and out of doors.
Annixter stood for a moment thoughtful, his protruding lower lip thrust out, his hands in his pocket.
“I suppose she’ll quit now,” he muttered. “Suppose she’ll leave the ranch—if she hates me like that. Well, she can go—that’s all—she can go. Fool female girl,” he muttered between his teeth, “petticoat mess.”
He was about to sit down to his supper when his eye fell upon the Irish setter, on his haunches in the doorway. There was an expectant, ingratiating look on the dog’s face. No doubt, he suspected it was time for eating.
“Get out—you!” roared Annixter in a tempest of wrath.
The dog slunk back, his tail shut down close, his ears drooping, but instead of running away, he lay down and rolled supinely upon his back, the very image of submission, tame, abject, disgusting. It was the one thing to drive Annixter to a fury. He kicked the dog off the porch in a rolling explosion of oaths, and flung himself down to his seat before the table, fuming and panting.
“Damn the dog and the girl and the whole rotten business—and now,” he exclaimed, as a sudden fancied qualm arose in his stomach, “now, it’s all made me sick. Might have known it. Oh, it only lacked that to wind up the whole day. Let her go, I don’t care, and the sooner the better.”
He countermanded the supper and went to bed before it
