Olive laughed, and put her horse to a canter in order to snap the thread of talk which was becoming too difficult for her. Mr. Perseus remained in her company while she was driving home the cattle, but they had no further particular conversation, as the exigencies of driving the herd occupied their attention most of the time. On parting from her about a mile from her home, he promised to come some day to see her, and Olive added, “I do hope Ezra will be in, for I should so like you two to talk together. I am sure you have much in common.”
“We have one point in common, at all events,” thought Mr. Perseus as he rode away back towards the Big Cotton Wood Creek, “but I doubt very much if that would at all add to the harmony of our relations.”
Olive was full of her meeting with Mr. Perseus, an account of which she retailed to Ezra at supper.
“And just fancy his oddity! He wouldn’t tell me his real name after my unlucky slip, so he is Mr. Perseus to the end of the chapter, I suppose. He thought it such a joke.”
“So he saw the application,” remarked Ezra. “He must be a man of education.”
“He is a most superior man, I can see that. He has read everything I ever did and more too. And do you know, Ezra, I shouldn’t wonder if he had leanings towards community-life, many things he said pointed that way. Wouldn’t it be funny if I were to be the one to bring in your first convert, poor little me that never had any leanings until I saw you.”
Ezra looked sharply at his wife during this speech, for a sudden and by no means pleasant suspicion sprang into his mind concerning the mysterious Mr. Perseus. However, Olive looked so perfectly innocent of even all knowledge of evil that he felt ashamed of himself.
“I wouldn’t be too friendly with this man. We don’t know anything about him, nor who he is, remember,” remarked Ezra.
“He said he knew you and that you were a fine-looking man, you old dear, and he is acquainted with most of the members of the Community by sight. Besides, I thought it was a point of etiquette on the prairie to make no inquiries into a person’s character, but to take him in his boots just as he stands, and ask him to dinner. Don’t you remember Charlie Clarke, and how he came to supper by your invitation and you found him so pleasant, and he a horse-thief and a murderer all the while, only we didn’t know it.”
This was all very true, but Charlie Clarke had evinced no “leanings” to community-life, and above all Olive had been profoundly uninterested in him and was delighted when he left. Ezra hated himself for the feeling in his heart, but he had his suspicions of Mr. Perseus, and he knew his wife was distractingly pretty. So he advised her to keep aloof from Mr. Perseus as much as practicable. Several times afterwards he made excuses to go riding with her, which Olive enjoyed immensely, but then something was said to her about his shirking his share of the work, and she was furiously angry. She wanted her husband to be first, and since the only theatre for the exhibition of his abilities was the somewhat restricted one of Perfection City, she wanted him to be always near the front.