Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/346

 She gasped, and, himself breathing hard, he ordered, "You kiss me good."

Instead, she burst into tears and pushed herself from him. Baffled, he released her and let her huddle by herself in her corner of the seat, crying.

"Why, I mean it, Kid!" he puzzled over her. "I mean it."

Soon he warned her. "Here's the hotel."

She sat up, dabbing her eyes, and patted powder on her cheeks.

"All dandy now?" asked Ket, relieved.

She nodded and got out after him and while he was paying the driver, she fled into the hotel and took refuge in the women's room, where she dropped into a soft rest chair and closed her eyes. Her temples, her finger tips, her whole body throbbed.

He meant his offer of marriage, she knew; he meant, before taking her away with him for the night, to buy a marriage license and stand with her, for five minutes or so, before a magistrate or a minister and make her his wife—after lunch. He would do it; she had merely to go out and meet him in the lobby and tell him, "Yes," and between lunch and dinner she could become his wife.

A maid in attendance asked her, "Are you Miss Royle?" and told her that her gentleman was waiting; so she arose and went to the mirror and out to Ket.

"You're a knock-out," he approved her appearance and praised also the hotel. "I take to this shed. We'll come back here. I got our rooms already—swell ones, upstairs. Want to look 'em over?"

"No, Ket."

"Hungry? You bet I am." He led her into the dining-room and to a table where ice clinked in glasses of brown liquor.

He touched her glass with his own and drank. "Go