The girl's eyes were wet with tears: "Yes,
I--he loves me--and he asked me to marry him. He said I would marry
either you or him, and he would wait for me to decide--until I was
sure." Her voice steadied, and Endicott noticed that it held a trace
of defensive. "He's a dear, and--I know--way down in his heart he's
good--he's----"
Endicott smiled: "Yes, little girl, he is good. He's a man--every inch
of him. And he's a man among men. He's honest and open hearted and
human. There is not a mean hair in his head. And he stands a great
deal nearer the top of his profession than I do to the top of mine. I
have been a fool, Alice. I can see now what a complacent fool and a
cad I must have been--when I could look at these men and see nothing
but uncouthness. But, thank God, men can change----"
Impulsively the girl reached for his hand: "No," she murmured,
remembering the words of the Texan, "no, the man was there all the
time. The real man that is _you_ was concealed by the unreal man that
is superficiality."
"Thank you, Alice," he said gravely. "And for your sake--and I say it
an all sincerity--let the best man win!"
The girl smiled up into his face: "And in all sincerity I will say that
in all your life you have never seemed so--so marryable as you do right
now.
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