CHAPTER II
The Bachelor Heart
Rita's first great pain kept her sleepless through many hours. She resolved that when Dic should come again she would throw off the restraint that so hurt and provoked her, and would show him, at whatever cost, that she had not intended her hard words for him.
The next day seemed an age. She sought all kinds of work to make the time pass quickly. Churning, usually irksome, was a luxury. She swept every nook and corner of the house, and longed to sweep the whole farm.
That evening she did not wait till Dic was in sight to put on her ribbon. She changed it many times from her throat to her hair and back again, long before the sun had even thought of going down.
Her new attitude toward Dic had at least one good effect: it took from her the irritation she had so often felt against herself. Losing part of her self-consciousness in the whirl of a new, strong motive, wrought a great change, not only in her appearance, but also in her way of looking at things—herself included. She was almost satisfied with the image her mirror reflected. She might well have been entirely satisfied. There was neither guile nor vanity in the girl's heart, nor a trace of deceit in her face; only gentleness, truth, and beauty. She had not hitherto given much thought to her face; but with the change in her way of seeing Dic, her eyes were opened to the value of personal beauty. Then she began to wonder. Regret for her hard words to Dic deepened her longing for beauty, in the hope that she might be admired by him and more easily forgiven. Billy Little, who had seen much of the world, once said that there was a gentleness and beauty about Rita at this time which he believed no other woman ever possessed. She was child and woman then, and that combination is hard to beat, even in a plain girl. Poor old Billy Little! He was more than thirty years her senior, but I believe there is no period in the life of a bachelor, however case-hardened he may be, when his heart is entirely safe from the enemy. That evening Rita sat on the porch watching for Dic. But the sun and her heart went down, and Dic did not come.
The plaintive rain cry of a whippoorwill from the branches of a dead tree across the river, and the whispering "peep, peep, peep," of the sleepy robins in the foliage near the house, helped to deepen her feeling of disappointment, and she was thoroughly miserable. She tried to peer through the gloaming, and feared her father and mother would mark her troubled eagerness and guess its cause. But her dread of their comments was neutralized by the fear that Dic would not come.
Opportunity is the touchstone of fate, save with women. With them it is fate itself. Had Dic appeared late that evening, there would have been a demonstration on Rita's part, regardless of who might have seen, and the young man would have discovered an interesting truth. Rita, deeply troubled, discovered it for herself, and thought surely it was plain enough for every one else to see.
When darkness had fallen, she became reckless of concealment, and walked a short way up the river in the hope of meeting Dic. The hooting of an owl frightened her, but she did not retreat till she heard the howling of a wolf. Then she ran home at full speed and went to bed full of the most healthful suffering a heart can know—that which it feels because of the pain it has given another.
