Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/290

280 I'm a tough old codger and may be marked down for a hale old ninety. All I want is to make you happy and carefree."

"Cutty, I'd like to curl up in some corner and cry, gratefully. I didn't know there were such men. I just don't know what to do. It isn't as if you were asking me to be your wife. And as you say, I can't accept money. There is a pride in me that rejects the whole thing; but it may be the same fool pride that has cut away my friends. I ought to fall on your neck with joy; and here I am trying to look round corners! You are my father's friend, my mother's, mine. Why shouldn't I accept the proposition? You are alone, too. You have a perfect right to do as you please with your money, and I have an equally perfect right to accept your gifts. We are all afraid of the world, aren't we? That's probably at the bottom of my doddering. Cutty, what is love?" she broke off, whimsically.

"Looking into mirrors and hunting for specks," he answered, readily.

"I mean seriously."

"So do I. Before I went round to the stage entrance to take your mother out to supper I used to preen an hour before the mirror. My collar, my cravat, my hair, the nap on my stovepipe, my gloves—terrible things! And what happened? Your dad, dressed in his office clothes, came along like a cyclone, walked all over my toes, and swooped up your