Into the Primitive Part 43

He crushed her to him in his great arms.

"My little girl!--dear little girl!" he repeated, and he pressed his lips to her hair.

She snuggled her face closer against his shoulder, and replied in a very small voice, "I--I suppose you know that s.h.i.+p captains can m-marry people."

"But I haven't even a job yet!" he exclaimed. "Suppose your father--"

"Please listen!" she pleaded. There was a sound like suppressed sobbing.

"What is it?" he ventured, and he listened, greatly perturbed. The m.u.f.fled voice sounded very meek and plaintive: "I'll try to do my part, Mr. Blake,--really I will! I--I hope we can manage to struggle along--somehow. You know, I have a little of my own. It's only three--three million; but--"

"What!" he demanded, and he held her out at arm's length, to stare at her in frowning bewilderment. "If I'd known that, I'd--"

"You'd never have given me a chance to--to propose to you, you dear old silly!" she cried, her eyes dancing with tender mirth. "See here!"

She turned from him, and back again, and held up a withered, crumpled flower. He looked, and saw that it was the amaryllis blossom.

"You--kept it!"

"Because--because, even then, down in the bottom of my heart, I had begun to realize--to know what you were like--and of course that meant-- Tom, tell me! Do you think I'm utterly shameless? Do you blame me for being the one to--to--"

"Blame you!" he cried. He paused to put a finger under her chin and raise her down-bent face. His eyes were very blue, but there was a twinkle in their depths. "Oh, yes; it was dreadful, wasn't it? But I guess I've no complaint to file just now."

THE END

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