"
He nodded comprehendingly, but hesitated over further words.
Then something occurred to him. "Look here!" he said.
"If you're as keen about all this, are you game to give up
this footling old shop, and devote your time to carrying
out my plans, when I've licked 'em into shape?"
She began shaking her head, but then something seemed
also to occur to her. "It'll be time enough to settle
that when we get to it, won't it?" she observed.
"No--you've got to promise me now," he told her.
"Well that I won't!" she answered, roundly.
"You'd see the whole--the whole scheme come to nothing,
would you?"--he scolded at her--"rather than abate a jot
of your confounded mulishness."
"Aha!" she commented, with a certain alertness of
perception shining through the stolidity of her mien.
"I knew you were humbugging! If you'd meant what you said,
you wouldn't talk about its coming to nothing because I
won't do this or that. I ought to have known better.
I'm always a goose when I believe what you tell me."
A certain abstract justice in her reproach impressed him.
"No you're not, Lou," he replied, coaxingly. "I really
mean it all--every word of it--and more. It only occurred
to me that it would all go better, if you helped.
Can't you understand how I should feel that?"
She seemed in a grudging way to accept anew his professions
of sincerity, but she resisted all attempts to extract
any promise.
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