Page:The man on horseback (IA manonhorseback00abdurich).pdf/69

Rh in front of her, looming up square and heavy and manly in the drifting moonlight.

"Bertha," he said in a low voice, "a few weeks ago when I was going to tell you that I love you, you did not let me finish. You told me that you"

"I told you that I would not marry you, nor any other American." She was not looking at him, but studied her tiny, narrow foot, arching the instep.

"You will listen to me now," he went on. "You see, I love you. I am mad about you, just plumb mad, I—why, girl, there isn't a thing in the world I wouldn't do for you. Perhaps I am just a fool, just a silly, superstitious fool. But last year, back on the Killicott, when I looked at you, pretty and dainty and well-educated and the daughter of a rich man, when I looked at myself, just a poor horse wrangler with not a cent in my jeans, nothing but my sixty bucks or so to live on, I used to pray. Yes! I prayed to God to give me money!"

"Tom!"

"Wrong to pray for money, you think? Not a bit of it! For when I prayed for money, I prayed for what's best, what's most strong, most decent in me! My love for you! You see, I'm not altogether a sentimental jackass. I know that even the truest love in the world can't make a go of it on sixty bucks a month, that even the truest love in the world has got to eat and drink and—" smiling and leveling a shameless thumb at her dainty little dance frock of lavender tulle, girdled with a shimmering length of blue and silver brocade, "buy one of those things once in a while. Wait," as she started to rise, "I haven't finished yet. My words are—oh—sort of inadequate. If I had you out on the range now, with the wind in my face and a little pony between my