Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/336

Rh but I'm engaged to Edith Curzon on the quiet."

"I reckon you'll marry her, then," I said; "because she strikes me as a young woman who's not going to lose a million dollars without putting a tracer after it."

"And that's not the worst of it," Jack went on.

"Not the worst of it! What do you mean! You haven't married her on the quiet, too, have you?"

"No, but there's Mabel Moore, you know."

I didn't know, but I guessed. "You haven't been such a double-barreled donkey as to give her an option on yourself, too?"

"No, no; but I've said things to her which she may have misconstrued, if she's inclined to be literal."

"You bet she is," I answered. "I never saw a nice, fat, blonde girl who took a million-dollar offer as a practical joke. What is it you've said to her? 'I love you,