Page:Morley roberts--Blue Peter--sea yarns.djvu/205

Rh "But I like you very much now," said Ruddle, "I really do; and I think you are very pretty, ma'am, if I may say so, and the situation is very awkward. I hope I ain't too forward, which has never been my way with ladies, I assure you."

As it had taken Susan over a year to encourage him to the point of proposing, she felt sure that he was speaking the solid truth, and it touched her deeply.

"I'm very glad you think I'm pretty," she said with the most charming modesty. "If—oh, if you think so, perhaps you are not sorry that you are married."

"But I don't feel married," urged Ruddle desperately, "and I don't know what to do about it. It's by far the awkwardest situation I was ever in by long chalks, and it beats me, it fair beats me."

But surely there was a way out, thought Susan, and she wondered whether as his wife she might not suggest it.

"But you like me?"

"Oh, yes, to be sure," said Ruddle, "and I quite understand how I came to marry you. That is, I can understand how I wanted to, but what fair licks me is what you saw in me.