Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/225

 “And asks to be conquered,” suggested Whispering Smith.

“Asks! Oh, scandalous, Mr. Smith!”

“It is easy to see why he never could get any one to marry him,” declared McCloud over the bacon.

“Hold on, then! Like lovely woman, it does not seek us, we seek it,” persisted the orator, “That at least is so, isn’t it?”

“It is better,” assented Marion.

“And it waits to be conquered. How is that?”

Marion turned to Dicksie. “You are not helping a bit. What do you think?”

“I don’t think woman and trouble ought to be associated even in figure; and I think ‘waits’ is horrid,” and Dicksie looked gravely at Whispering Smith.

McCloud, too, looked at him. “You’re in trouble now yourself.”

“And I brought it on myself. So we do seek it, don’t we? And trouble, I must hold, is like woman. ‘Waits’ I strike out as unpleasantly suggestive; let it go. So, then, trouble is like a lovely woman, loveliest when conquered. Now, Miss Dunning, if you have a spark of human kindness you won’t turn me down on that proposition. By the way, I have something put down about trouble.” 201