forced him to speak out sudden and unafraid where other, more sophisticated men, would have hesitated.
Thus it was now.
He had always loved her, and he had never considered the fact that he was a simple horse wrangler, while she was the daughter of a well-to-do, well-educated man. What had kept him from speaking to her of love had been the fact that he had been poor. Now he was on the road to fortune, and so he spoke, straight out, without preamble:
"Bertha, I must tell you something. I. . ."
She turned very quickly and cut through his sentence with a gesture of her slim, white fingers.
"Don't, Tom," she said.
"But you don't know what I. . ."
"I do. You are going to tell me that you love me, aren't you?" And, when he did not reply, just inclined his head, she went on: "I shall never marry an American!"
"You. . . What?" Tom was utterly taken aback.
"I shall never marry an American," she repeated calmly.
"But—why?"
She did not reply for several seconds. She had always liked Tom, had always felt safe in his presence. There had even been moments, last year on the Killicott ranch, when her liking had edged close to the danger line of something greater. But she had changed since then. In Berlin a new world, new people, a new view-point, new prejudices, had spread before her; and, honest in so far that she saw things without spectacles, dishonest in so far that these things were only those she wanted to see, she told Tom just what she thought.
