Jerry thought she really was going to cry, this time, and it seemed to him that these domestic whirlwinds furnished ample reason for it.
"Course!" he said, in whole-hearted misery for her. "It's a bad place. A man wouldn't think anything of it, but womenfolks are different. They'd mind it terribly. Anybody could see they would."
Stella looked at him as if personal chastisement would be too light for him.
"Don't you see?" she insisted in a tone of enforced patience. "If you'd only dress up and come over."
Light broke in on him.
"Course I will, Stella," he called, so loudly that she looked over her shoulder to see if perhaps some neighbor, crossing the wood-lot, might have heard. "You just bet I will!"
Then, to his wonderment, she had vanished as softly as she came. Jerry was disappointed. He had thought they were going on talking about the domestic frenzies wrought by aunt Hill, but it seemed that further sociability was to be denied him until to-morrow night. He took up his axe, and went on paying into the heart of the tree. But he whistled now, and omitted to think how much he hated Stella. He was debating whether her scarlet shawl was redder than her cheeks. But Jerry never voiced such wonders. They seemed to him like a pain, or satisfaction over one's dinner, an ultimate part of individual experience.
The next night, early after supper, he took his way "down along" to the Joyce homestead lying darkly under leafless elms. There was a light in the parlor, as there had been every night since he began to go with Stella, and his heart beat in recognition, knowing it was for him. He tried the front door to walk in, neighbor-fashion, but it resisted him, and then he let the knocker fall. Immediately a window opened above, and Stella's voice came down to him.
"O Jerry, mother's back is worse, and I feel as if I'd ought to be rubbin' her. You come over another time."
Jerry stood staring up at her, a choking in his throat, and something burning hotly into his eyes. But he found his voice just as the window was sliding down.