was never more in earnest in my life. There's nothing wrong in
my intentions or anything like that. What I mean is strictly
honorable--"

But the expression of her face made him stop. She was angry, and
she was laughing at the same time.

"The last thing you should have said," she cried. "It's like
a--a matrimonial bureau: intentions strictly honorable; object,
matrimony. But it's no more than I deserved. This is what I
suppose you call urging like Sam Scratch."

The tan had bleached out of Daylight's skin since the time he
came to live under city roofs, so that the flush of blood showed
readily as it crept up his neck past the collar and overspread
his face. Nor in his exceeding discomfort did he dream that she
was looking upon him at that moment with more kindness than at
any time that day. It was not in her experience to behold big
grown-up men who blushed like boys, and already she repented the
sharpness into which she had been surprised.

"Now, look here, Miss Mason," he began, slowly and stumblingly at
first, but accelerating into a rapidity of utterance that was
almost incoherent; "I'm a rough sort of a man, I know that, and I
know I don't know much of anything. I've never had any training
in nice things. I've never made love before, and I've never been
in love before either--and I don't know how to go about it any
more than a thundering idiot. What you want to do is get behind
my tomfool words and get a feel of the man that's behind them.
That's me, and I mean all right, if I don't know how to go about