"My dear sir," replied Hugh, "I do not know what love is. I have made no untruthful statement, if that is what you mean by asking, 'Is that square?'"
"Thet's all I wanted to hear you say," said Kinneman; "but somethin' mighty thrillin' is liable to happen if you reach fur yer artill'ry, so jist keep yer hands away from yer belt." With this, he turned on his heel. He walked a few steps and then stopped.
"Look 'e here, Stanton," said he, "speakin' wide-open like, there's only one special thing on earth thet I've set my heart on, an' if I find thet you've lied to me, I'm 'lowin' I'll push you off the face uv the earth, an' fill you so full uv holes that St. Peter won't know you. I'll take my chances on the major bein' favorable, an' thet girl's goin' to be mine if I hev to kill a baker's dozen to git her." With this he walked away in the darkness.
Hugh hastened to the hotel. Whether from the exaltation occasioned by Marie's playing, or from the counteracting influence of Bill Kinne-man's wicked threat, or from both, he knew not, but nevertheless he felt strangely disturbed, as if a soul chord had suddenly been unkeyed in his life's harp.
He sat by the window far into the night, endeavoring to choose a course to pursue. Lord Avondale would soon return. A sense of duty forced itself upon him when he thought of Ethel Horton, and he determined to declare himself to her without further delay. He tried in vain to analyze his feelings toward the beautiful and accomplished Marie. A mist rose up before him and he seemed to hear once more the Moonlight Sonata. Then he felt that his interest in Marie was embodied solely in the one word, music. He longed for a confiding hour with his old boyhood friend, Jack Redfield. "If he were only here," he mused, "I would talk it all over with him and be guided by his advice." Seating himself at his table, he determined to write to him. Then he fell to musing again, and left the letter unwritten.
TWO weeks had passed since the Osborn dinner. One morning the captain observed to Hugh, "My boy, have you been idling your time away, or can't you decide?"
"I don't quite catch your meaning," said Hugh, pleasantly.
"Well, to be more explicit," replied Captain Osborn, "you haven't yet asked Ethel Horton to become your wife, have you?"