"Other men like me fur my looks, ef ye don't, Justus Hoxon," she said in indignation.
"Ef they jes' likes ye fur yer looks they won't like ye long," Hoxon said severely. "I'll like ye when yer brown head is ez white ez cotton—ez much ez I like ye now—more!—more, I'll be bound! O 'Dosia," with a sudden renewal of tenderness, "don't talk this hyar cur'ous way! I dunno what's witched ye. But let's go home ter the mountings, ter yer mother, an' see ef she can't straighten out any tangle yer feelin's hev got inter."
It needed only this—the allusion to her commonplace mother, the recollection of the forlorn little mountain home, the idea of her mother's insistent championship of Justus Hoxon—to bring the avowal so long trembling on her lips.
"I won't! I ain't likin' ye nowadays, Justus Hoxon, nor fur a long time past. I ain't keerin' nothin' 'bout ye."
There was something in her tone that carried conviction.
"Air ye in earnest?" he said, appalled.
"Dead earnest."
He gazed at her in the ever dulling light, that yet was clear enough to show every lineament—even the long black eyelashes that did not droop or quiver above her great blue eyes.
"Then thar's no more to be said." He spoke in a changed voice, calm and clear, and she stared at him in palpable surprise. She had expected an outburst of reproach, of beseechings, of protestation. She had braced herself to meet it, and she felt the reaction. She was hardly capable of coping with seeming indifference. It touched her pride. She missed the tribute of the withheld pleadings. She sought to rouse his jealousy.
"It's another man I like," she said, "better—oh, a heap better—than you-uns."