It was at this juncture that Tots had lounged into Ruth's consideration
and proposed himself as a candidate for her favour.
Tots was a familiar friend of the family. Every one liked him in a
tolerant, joking sort of way. No one took him seriously. He was to act
as best man at the forthcoming wedding, being a near friend and the host
of the bridegroom.
Uniformly kind to man and beast, he had made himself lazily pleasant to
the unattractive cousin. Circumstance had thrown them a good deal
together, and he had not quarrelled with circumstance. He had acquiesced
with a smile.
He made it appear in some fashion absurd that they should not at least
be friends, and then, having gained that much, he astounded her by
proposing to her. It was a preposterous situation. Having at length
freed herself from him, she escaped to the house to review it with
burning cheeks. It was nothing but a joke, of course--of course, however
he might repudiate the fact, and she resented it with all her might. She
would teach him that such jokes were not to be played upon her with
impunity. She had no one to defend her from this species of insult. She
would defend herself. She would fool him as he sought to fool her.
But there was a yet more painful ordeal in store for her that night in
the billiard-room, had she but known it. The morrow's bridegroom, Fred
Danvers, having failed to execute an easy shot, some one accused him of
possessing shaky nerves.
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