“Wouldn’t tell what?”

He was rattling her, and so she fought him with her gaze, trying to fasten and fathom under the flicker of his lids.  But there were no eyes there.  Only the neutral, tricky tan.

“You see, Morton, she’s just sixteen.  The age when it’s more important than anything else in the world to a young girl that’s been reared like her to—­to have her life regular!  Like all her other little school friends.  She’s like that, Morton.  Sensitive!  Don’t touch her, Morton.  For God’s sake, don’t!  Some day when she’s past having to care so terribly—­when she’s older—­you can rake it up if you must torture.  I’ll tell her then.  But for God’s sake, Morton, let us live—­now!”

“Hattie, you meet me to-morrow morning and take a little journey to one of these little towns around here in Jersey or Connecticut, and your lie to her won’t be a lie any more.”

“Morton—­I—­I don’t understand.  Why?”

“I’ll marry you.”

“You fool!” she said, almost meditatively.  “So you’ve heard we’ve gotten on a bit.  You must even have heard of this”—­placing her hand over the jar of the Brown Cold Cream.  “You want to be in at the feast.  You’re so easy to read that I can tell you what you’re after before you can get the coward words out.  Marry you!  You fool!”

It was as if she could not flip the word off scornfully enough, sucking back her lower lip, then hurling.

“Well, Hattie,” he said, unbunching his soft hat, “I reckon that’s pretty plain.”

“I reckon it is, Morton.”

“All right.  Everybody to his own notion of carryin’ a grudge to the grave.  But it’s all right, honey.  No hard feelin’s.  It’s something to know I was willin’ to do the right thing.  There’s a fruit steamer out of here for N’Orleans in the mawnin’.  Reckon I’ll catch it.”

“I’d advise you to.”

“No objection to me droppin’ around to see the girl first?  Entitled to a little natural curiosity.  Come, I’ll take you up home this evenin’.  The girl.  No harm.”

“You’re not serious, Morton.  You wouldn’t upset things.  You wouldn’t tell—­that—­child!”

“Why, not in a thousand years, honey, unless you forced me to it.  Well, you’ve forced me.  Come, Hattie, I’m seein’ you home this evenin’.”

“You can’t put your foot—­”

“Come now.  You’re too clever a woman to try to prevent me.  Course there’s a way to keep me from goin’ up home with you this evenin’.  I wouldn’t use it, if I were you.  You know I’ll get to see her.  I even know where she goes to school.  Mighty nice selection you made, Hattie, Miss Harperly’s.”

“You can’t frighten me,” she said, trying to moisten her lips with her tongue.  But it was dry as a parrot’s.  It was hard to close her lips.  They were oval and suddenly immobile as a picture frame.  What if she could not swallow.  There was nothing to swallow!  Dry tongue.  O God!  Marcia!