He stopped as if some one had laid a hand over his mouth.  It was not as she said.  It might have been, only for that drunken marriage of his.  Never before had he hated whisky as bitterly as he did then, when he remembered what it had done for him that night in Sunset, and what it was doing now.  It closed his lips upon what he would have given much to be able to say; for he was a man with all the instincts of chivalry and honor—­and he loved the girl.  It was, he realized bitterly, just because he did love her so well, that he could not say more.  He had said too much already; but her nearness had gone to his head, and he had forgotten that he was not free to say what he felt.

Perhaps Josephine mistook his sudden silence for trepidation, or humility.  At any rate she reined impulsively close, and reached out and caught the hand hanging idly at his side.

“Ford, I’m no coquette,” she said straightforwardly, with a blush for maiden-modesty’s sake.  “I believe you; absolutely and utterly I believe you.  If you had been different at first—­if you had made any overtures whatever toward—­toward lovemaking, I should have despised you.  I never would have loved you in this world!  But you didn’t.  You kept at such a distance that I—­I couldn’t help thinking about you and studying you.  And lately—­when I knew you were fighting the—­the habit—­I loved you for the way you did fight.  I was afraid, too.  I used to slip into your room every time you left it, and look—­and I just ached to help you!  But I knew I couldn’t do a thing; and that was the hardest part.  All I could do was stand back—­clear back out of sight, and hope.  And—­and love you, too, Ford.  I’m proud of you!  I’m proud to think that I—­I love a man that is a man; that doesn’t sit down and whine because a fight is hard, or give up and say it’s no use.  I do despise a moral weakling, Ford.  I don’t mind what you have been; it’s what you are, that counts with me.  And you’re a man, every inch of you.  I’m not a bit afraid you’ll weaken.  Only,” she added half apologetically, “I did want you to give me the—­the jug, because I couldn’t bear to see you look so worried.”  She gave his fingers an adorable little squeeze, and flung his hand away from her, and laughed in a way to set his heart pounding heavily in his chest.  “Now you know where I stand, Mr. Man,” she cried lightly, “so let’s say no more about it.  I bet I can beat you across this flat!” She laughed again, wrinkled her nose at him impertinently, and was off in a run.

[Illustration:  “Ford, I’m no coquette,” she said straightforwardly.]

If she had waited, Ford would have told her.  If she had given him a chance, he would have told her afterward; but she did not.  She was extremely careful not to let their talk become intimate, after that.  She laughed, she raced Hooligan almost to the point of abuse, she chattered about everything under the sun that came into her mind, except their own personal affairs or anything that could possibly lead up to the subject.