Page:BM Bower - Her Prairie Knight.djvu/183

 shoulder, and finding it the best place in the world to be. "I never said I was going to take charge at all!" Then the impulse of confession seized her. "Will you hate me, if I tell you something?"

"I expect I will," Keith assented, his eyes positively idolatrous. "What is it, girlie?"

"Well, I—it was Dick's fault; I never would have thought of such a thing if he hadn't goaded me into it—but—well, I was going to make you propose, on a wager" The brown head of Beatrice went down out of sight, on his arm. "I was going to refuse you—and get Rex"

"I know." Keith held her closer than ever. "Dick rode over and told me that day. And I wasn't going to give you a chance, missy. If you hadn't started to cry, here Oh! what's the use? You didn't refuse me—and you're not going to, either, are you, girlie?"

Beatrice intimated that there was no immediate danger of such a thing happening.

"You see, Dick and I felt that you belonged to me, by rights. I fell in love with a picture of you, that you sent him—that one taken in your graduation gown—and I told Dick I was going to take 179