Mrs. Pantin flushed. Disconcerted for a moment, she collected herself, and instead of protesting ignorance of her meaning, as she was tempted, she said candidly:
“We must let bygones be bygones, Miss Prentice, and be friends. We are older now, and wiser, aren’t we?”
Kate clasped her hands behind her, a mannerism with which offending herders were familiar, and regarded Mrs. Pantin steadily.
“Older but not wiser, apparently, else you would have known better than to suggest the possibility of friendship between us. You are a poor judge of human nature, and conceited past my understanding, to imagine that it is a matter which is entirely optional with you.” With the slow one-sided smile of irony which her face sometimes wore, she bowed slightly. Then, “You will excuse me?” and passed on.
CHAPTER XXVI
TAKING HER MEDICINE
The moon was up when Kate got in from town, for she had not hurried. There was no one there to greet her except the sheep dog that ran out barking. She unsaddled, turned the horse in the corral, and picked up the mail sack heavy with Bowers’s missives.
She had not eaten since noon, but she was not hungry, and she went to her wagon immediately. Opening the door she stood there for a moment. The stillness appalled her. How could such a small space give forth such a sense of big emptiness, she wondered. Everything was empty—her life, her arms, and, for the moment, even her ambitions. Unexpectedly the thought overwhelmed her.