Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 40: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

O12 ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. plained that there was nothing on earth that you didn’t provide me with—-” “Ha! What did the young fool say to that?” queried Mr. Bennett. “ He said he knew it, of course, but he’d heard that business wasn’t so very brisk in your agency these days, and—” ‘So he thought he could buy you, did he? The colossal nerve of the brat!” “Dad, I’ve told you that he didn’t men- tion marriage at all that time. 1 did ask him why he had selected me for the gift, and he grinned and said that I had done so much for him.” “And what had you done?” demanded her father sharply. ‘““T don’t know,’ admitted Florence, speaking slowly. ‘‘ When I asked him, he said I had—I had—oh, dad, this is so silly, but he said I had danced with him the night before for the first time in months; and— and—well, he said a thousand grand would never mean anything in his young life aiter that.” ' “Crazy as a coot!” snorted Mr. Ben- nett; yet the narrative somehow fascinated him. Crazy as—-anything,” agreed Florence; . “but, dad, I couldn’t laugh when he said that. I tried to, of course, but I couldn't, and I can’t now. The whole scene was im- possible, as impossible as Bill himself; but for all that, when he received a million dollars, the first money he ever possessed above a thousand at one time—when that fortune fell into his hands he thought of me and came around and tossed it in my lap. He might have bought ropes of em- eralds and pearls, I suppose, and flung them with a flourish around my neck. “Tf I'd have been mad enough to accept such a gift as jewels, of course, every one would have known it a week later, some- how. But he came to me like a kid that brings the first agate marble he ever owned to his pig-tailed sweetheart in school; and he was hurt a little, really, when I wouldn't take it. He explained that it wouldn’t be necessary for any one— Oh, well, Bill’s crazy, as you say, dad, but I can tell you what I couldn’t tell him, and that 1s that it was as splendid a compliment as ever a man paid to a girl that I’ve known.” ‘ And yeu think you love him?” hazard- ed Mr. Bennett. “ Just because he paved the way to a proposal with his fortune? Maybe he is crazy like a weasel!” “I'm not letting myself love any one, lad,” she replied; “ but I don’t think you judge Bill fairly. When he did propose, a few evenings after, he said he was glad I didn’t accept the million, even though he had felt badly about it at the time. If I’d taken it, he said, he’d never have been able to ask me to marry him, because it would look as though he hadn’t been on the level all the way through.” ‘Yes, but he did propose,” cut in her father. * Y-e-e-s, he did propose,” assented the girl; “ and he didn’t seem crazy then. He knelt, too, before me, and asked if I thought there was a chance on earth for him to hope. He didn’t plead or beg, or grow eloquent about it. He just said that he loved me and that if there was anything he could do to convince me of it, and I cared for his love, he would like to know. ‘“ Dad, it wasn’t my first proposal, but I know it was Bill’s; and I’m afraid it’s the proposal I'll remember longest. JI couldn’t tell him ‘ No’ outright, so I told him that { couldn’t even answer until you approved the plan. I said we were old-fashioned, that there was only the two of us since mother died, and—well, he said he thought that was a fine way for me to feel, and he would See you and talk it over. He said he wanted to speak to you about going to work, any- way, because he was getting old—” ‘Old? That—that—that—” “T laughed, too, but Bill’s twenty-five, and he said he’d learned that he wasn’t made of whalebone and wire, and maybe he’d look into the advertising business—”’ ‘Q-ho! So he thinks he can break into my office as well as my family with his million, does he?”? demanded Mr. Bennett. “Why didn’t you tell him you wouldn’t marry such a moon-mad imbecile and have cone with him?” “ W-e-e-l-], I was afraid he mightn’t take ‘No’ for an answer from me, either,” re- plied the girl, sliding from the chair arm and facing her father with a mischievous smile. ‘‘ And anyway, I sent him to you.” 2A comiclooolks