Pearl threw herself from him and looked at him with wild eyes.  “Then how are you going to get free now?” she cried.  “What are your plans?  Why is she going to come around now, if she never has before?”

“She ain’t, honey, the devil take her!” He caught her back in his arms and held her as if he would never release her.  “But what difference does that make to us?” he pleaded ardently.  “We’re going to let the whole lot of them go hang and live our lives as we choose.”

“Then Pop and Bob were right; and I never believed them, not for a moment.  I thought you were too smart to stay caught in a trap like that.  I thought you were so quick and keen to plan and were so full of ideas that you could get around any situation.”  Again she flung herself away from him and, with her face turned from him, stood looking out over the desert.

He bent toward her and, throwing his arms about her, again endeavored to draw her back into his embrace, but she resisted.

“Pearl,” he cried roughly, “what do you mean?  You don’t mean to say that you got any foolish ideas about it making any difference whether a preacher says a few words over us or not?  Why, you can’t feel that way.  You’ve seen too much of life, and your folks have always been show people.  They didn’t hold any such ideas.  Anyway, you got brains to think for yourself.  What joke you playing on me, honey?  Oh, don’t hold me off like that, lift your head and look at me.  I know you’re going to laugh in about a minute and then I’ll know it’s all a joke.”  Again he tried to put his arm about her and again she threw him off.

“Let me alone,” she cried harshly.  “I’m thinking.  Let me alone.”

“Pearl,” he besought wildly; his face had suddenly grown flabby and white, his voice was broken with his desperate pleading.  “Honey, you don’t want time to think.  Why, there’s nothing to think about.  We’re going off on the train this afternoon to be happy together, and we don’t give a cent for anything else.  We’d be married if we could.  My Lord!  I should say so!  But since we can’t, we’ll make the best of it.”

He paused and looked at her, but there was something inflexible in her attitude, some almost threatening aloofness that made him hesitate to clasp her as he longed to do for fear he should meet another and final rebuff.  He waited a moment or two, but, as she did not speak, he began again.

“I know you’re joking, Pearl, but it’s awful hard on me”—­he wiped the sweat from his brow.  “You haven’t got any such fool ideas.  Of course you haven’t.  They’re for dead ones, old maid country school teachers, and preachers and things like that, hypocrites that have got to make their living by playing the respectable game.  But we’re not that kind, Pearl, we’re alive, and we’re not afraid.  We’re going to be happier than two people ever were in this world.  Pearl, speak to me.  I don’t wonder that your mother complains about the way you shut yourself up and never say a word.  Speak to me.  Tell me what you’re thinking.”