Page:Mary Rinehart - More Tish .djvu/50

 42  toast, and opened and heated a can of baked beans. He ate them all.

"Good gracious," he said, with the last spoonful, "what a world it would be without women!"

At that he fell into a sort of study, looking at the fire, and we all saw that he looked sad again and rather forlorn.

"Yes," Tish said, "you're all ready enough to shout 'Beware of woman' until you are hungry or uncomfortable or hurt, and then you are all just little boys again, crying for somebody to kiss the bump."

"But when it is a woman who has given the—er—bump?" he asked.

Aggie is romantic. Years ago she was engaged to a Mr. Wiggins, a roofer, who met with an accident due to an icy roof. She leaned forward and looked at him with sympathy.

"That's it, is it?" she asked gently.

He tried to smile, but we could all see that he was suffering.

"Yes, that's it—partly at least," he said. "That is, if it were not for a woman" He stopped abruptly. "But why should I bother you with my troubles?"

We were curious, of course; but it is hardly good taste to ask a man to confide his heartaches. As Tish said, the best cure for a masculine