"You are all right," he said, "a clean shot, a thoroughbred. I ask no
better comrade than you. I never again shall have such a comrade."
"But--I am your bayman, not your comrade," she exclaimed, forcing a
little laugh. "You'll have better guides than I, Mr. Marche."
"Do you reject the equal alliance I offer, Miss Herold?"
"I?" She flushed. "It is very kind of you to put it that way. But I am
only your guide--but it is pleasant to have you speak that way."
"What way?"
"The way you spoke about--your bayman's daughter."
He said, smilingly cool on the surface, but in a chaotic, almost idiotic
inward condition: "I've sat here for days, wishing all the while that I
might really know you. Would you care to let me, Miss Herold?"
"Know me?" she repeated. "I don't think I understand."
"Could you and your father and brother regard me as a guest--as a friend
visiting the family?"
"Why?"
"Because," he said, "I'm the same kind of a man that you are a girl and
that your brother is a boy. Why, you know it, don't you? I know it. I
knew it as soon as I heard you speak, and when your brother came into
the room that first night with his Latin book, and when I saw your
mother's picture. So I know what your father must be. Am I not right?"
She lifted her proud little head and looked at him. "We are what you
think us," she said.
"Then let us stand in that relation, Miss Herold. Will you?"
She looked at him, perplexed, gray eyes clear and thoughtful. "Do you
mean that you really want me for a friend?" she asked calmly, but her
sensitive lip quivered a little.
"Yes."
"Do men make personal friends among their employees? Do they? I ask
because I don't know."
"What was your father before he came here?" he inquired bluntly.
She looked up, startled, then the color came slowly back to her cheeks.
"Isn't that a little impertinent, Mr. Marche?"
"Good heavens! Yes, of course it is!" he exclaimed, turning very red.
"Will you forgive me? I didn't mean to be rude or anything like it! I
merely meant that whatever reverses have happened to bring such a girl
as you down into this God-forsaken place have not altered what you were
and what you are. Can you forgive me?"