“Purty kinda goings-on!” he mumbled. “Time Man had a flea put in 'is ear, by granny, if he don't want to lose that yeller-eyed wife of hisn.” To Polycarp, a closed door—when a man and woman were alone upon the other side—could mean nothing but surreptitious kisses and the like. He went stumbling out and drove away down the coulee, his head turning automatically so that his eyes were constantly upon the house; from his attitude, as Kent saw him through the window Polycarp expected an explosion, at the very least. His outraged virtue vested itself in one more sentence; “Purty blamed nervy, by granny—to go 'n' shut the door right in m' face!”
Inside the room, Val stood for a minute with her back against the door, as if she half feared Polycarp would break in and drag her secret from her. When she heard him leave the kitchen she drew a long breath, eloquent in itself: when the rattle of the wagon came to them there, she left the door and went slowly across the room until she stood close to Kent. The interruption had steadied them both. Her voice was a constrained calm when she spoke.
{Illustration: To draw the red hot spur across the fresh VP did not take long}
“Well—is there anything I can do? Because I suppose every minute is dangerous.”
Kent kept his eyes upon the departing Polycarp.
“There's nothing you can do, no. Maybe I can do something; soon as that granny gossip is outa sight, I'll go and round up that cow and calf—if somebody hasn't beaten me to it.”
Val looked at him with a certain timid helplessness.
“Oh! Will you—won't it be against the law if you—if you kill it?” She grew slightly excited again. “Kent, you shall not get into any trouble for—for his sake! If it comes to a choice, why—let him suffer for his crime. You shall not!”
Kent turned his head slowly and gazed down at her. “Don't run away with the idea I'm doing it for him,” he told her distinctly. “I love Man Fleetwood like I love a wolf. But if that VP calf catches him up, you'd fight your head over it, God only knows how long. I know you! You'd think so much about the part you played that you'd wind up by forgetting everything else. You'd get to thinking of him as a martyr, maybe! No—it's for you. I kinda got you into this, you recollect? If I'd let you see Man drank, that day, you'd never have married him; I know that now. So I'm going to get you out of it. My side of the question can wait.”
She stared up at him with a grave understanding.