the room.

"I'll see you home," he said, formally. "I hain't got nothin' to say."

"It--it's not your fault," she said, tremulously.

"Somebody'll wisht it wa'n't their fault 'fore mornin'," he answered.

"I shouldn't have gone."

"Why? Hain't you as good as any of them, and better? Hain't you the
pertiest girl I ever see?... You hain't mad with _me_, be you?"

"'No.... Not with anybody, I guess. I--I ought to be used to it. I--"
She began to cry.

It was a dark spot there on the bridge. Homer was not apt at words, but
he could feel and he did feel. It was no mere impulse to comfort a
pretty girl that moved him to inclose her with his muscular arms and to
press her to him none too gently.

"I kin lick the hull world fer you," he said, huskily, and then he
kissed her wet cheek again and again, and repeated his ability to thrash
all comers in her cause, and stated his desire to undertake exactly that
task for the term of her natural life. "If you was to marry me," he
said, "they wouldn't nobody dast trample on you.... You're a-goin' to
marry me, hain't you?"

"I--I don't know.... You--you don't know anything about me."