I can't laugh about being in love with you, Betty."
"I thank you, sir," replied Betty, saucily.
"When I saw you kneeling by the fire in free Levi's cabin, I knew that I
loved you," he said, hotly.
"But I can't always kneel to you, Dan," she interposed.
He put her words impatiently aside, "and what's more I knew then that I had
loved you all my life without knowing it," he pursued. "You may taunt me
with fickleness, but I'm not fickle--I was merely a fool. It took me a long
time to find out what I wanted, but I've found out at last, and, so help me
God, I'll have it yet. I never went without a thing I wanted in my life."
"Then it will be good for you," responded Betty. "Shall I put some rose
leaves into your pocket?" She spoke indifferently, but all the while she
heard her heart singing for joy.
In the rage of his boyish passion, he cut brutally at the flowers growing
at his feet.
"If you keep this up, you'll send me to the devil!" he exclaimed.
She caught his hand and took the whip from his fingers. "Ah, don't hurt the
poor flowers," she begged, "they aren't to blame."
"Who is to blame, Betty?"
She looked up wistfully into his angry face. "You are no better than a
child, Dan," she said, almost sadly, "and you haven't the least idea what
you are storming so about. It's time you were a man, but you aren't, you're
just--"
"Oh, I know, I'm just a pampered poodle dog," he finished, bitterly.
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