"And you can--you will."
"He isn't?" ejaculated Phil. "What is he?"
"He's a school-teacher, and I haven't got a thing but debts."
Phil received this untoward news as if a flock of angels, ringing joy
bells, had just brought him the gladdest tidings in history. After an
interlude he said:
"But, why--"
"Because," said Barbran, burrowing her nose in his coat: "I thought it
would be an asset. I thought people would consider it romantic and it
would help business. See how much that reporter made of it! Phil!
Wh-wh-why are you treating me like a--a--a--dumbbell?"
For he had thrust her away from him at arm's-length again.
"There's one other thing between us, Barbran."
"If there is, it's your fault. What is it?"
"Harvey Wheelwright," he said solemnly. "Do you really like that
sickening slush-slinger?"
She raised to him eyes in which a righteous hate quivered. "I loathe
him. I've always loathed him. I despise the very ink he writes with and
the paper it's printed on."
When I happened in a few minutes later, they were ritually burning the
"Dear Friend and Admirer" letter in a slow candle-flame, and Harvey
Wheelwright, as represented by his unctuously rolling signature, was
writhing in merited torment. Between them they told me their
little romance.
"And he's not going to Kansas City," said Barbran defiantly.
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