Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/86

, stopping occasionally to regard her with broad satisfaction.

Finally lighting a cigar, he leaned back in his chair and considered her comfortably.

"Looks pretty good to me to see you settin' there opposite—so sociable and homelike."

Nan's teeth shut together hard.

"Don't you think you'll like it?" He half closed his eyes and looked at her through a cloud of smoke.

"It's detestable!" she cried furiously. "You are detestable! I don't understand why you should have placed me in this position."

"Oh, yes, you do," he contradicted, good-naturedly. "Don't waste your breath telling any pretty little feminine fairy-tales like that. Any woman only half as smart as you are could see I've been crazy about you ever since I first saw you."

Nan flushed hotly.

"Isn't it possible for you to understand the light in which you have placed me?" she demanded. "Are you too utterly dense to realize what an unmanly, dishonorable advantage you have taken of me? I know now that