But, just before they drew up at the house of old Spicer South, she said:
"I might as well make a clean breast of it, Samson, and give my vanity the punishment it deserves. You had me in deep doubt."
"About what?"
"About—well, about us. I wasn't quite sure that I wanted Sally to have you—that I didn't need you myself. I've been a shameful little cat to Wilfred."
"But now—?" The Kentuckian broke off.
"Now, I know that my friendship for you and my love for him have both had their acid test—and I am happier than I've ever been before. I'm glad we've been through it. There are no doubts ahead. I've got you both."
"About him," said Samson, thoughtfully. "May I tell you something which, although it's a thing in your own heart, you have never quite known?"
She nodded, and he went on.
"The thing which you call fascination in me was really just a proxy, Drennie. You were liking qualities in me that were really his qualities. Just because you had known him only in gentle guise, his finish blinded you to his courage. Because he could turn 'to woman the heart of a woman,' you failed to see that under it was the 'iron and fire.' You thought you saw those qualities in me, because I wore my bark as shaggy as that scaling hickory over there. When he was getting anonymous threats of death every morning, he didn't mention them to you. He talked of teas and dances. I know his danger was real, because they tried to have me kill him—and if I'd been the man they took me for, I reckon I'd have done it. I was mad to my marrow that night—for a minute. I don't hold a brief for Wilfred, but I know that you liked me first for qualities which he has as strongly as I—and more strongly. He's a braver man than I, because, though raised to gentle things, when you ordered him into the fight, he was there. He never turned back, or flickered. I was raised on raw meat and gunpowder, but he went in without training."
The girl's eyes grew grave and thoughtful, and for the rest of the way she rode in silence.