You two tried to mangle him and you forced me to
play your game. While he was earning the medal of honor from Congress,
I sat around planning to parcel out his ranch to a passel of Japs.
I'll never be done with hating myself."
That night at the _hacienda_, Don Mike, taking advantage of Kay's
momentary absence, drew Mr. and Mrs. Parker aside.
"I have the honor to ask you both for permission to seek your
daughter's hand in marriage," he announced with that charming,
old-fashioned Castilian courtliness which never failed to impress Mrs.
Parker. Without an instant's hesitation she lifted her handsome face
and kissed him.
"I move we make it unanimous," Parker suggested, and gripped Don Mike's
hand.
"Fine," Don Mike cried happily. He was no longer the least bit
Castilian; he was all Gaelic-American. "Please clear out and let me
have air," he pleaded, and fled from the room. In the garden he met
Kay, and without an instant's hesitation took her by the arm and led
her over to the sweet lime tree.
"Kay," he began, "on such a moonlit night as this, on this same spot,
my father asked my mother to marry him. Kay, dear, I love you. I
always shall, I have never been in love before and I shall never be in
love again. There's just enough Celt in me to make me a one-girl man,
and since that day on the train when you cut my roast beef because my
hand was crippled, you've been the one girl in the world for me.
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