"If his heart has to ache,"—the girl's eyes were tender again—"it won't be because I fail him."
"And, for the present, it is you who are paying the assessments of heartache?"
"I guess it's not quite that bad,"—but her smile was forced. "I'm merely being gloomed on by melancholy in the family circle as a life-hope going to wreck. By a nod of my head—an acquiescent one to Morgan—I could set the broken family fortunes up again beyond danger and make everybody happy—except myself and Boone. They can't see anything but sheer perversity in my refusal. They see me, as they think, drifting on a sea of poverty and spinsterhood when the port lies open; they see me as a bridesmaid to my friends getting married—even as a godmother to their children—and they shake gloomy heads because the water is all running by the mill!"
"And you are—how old?"—McCalloway's eyes were twinkling with the question, "—in your hopeless celibacy?"
"Twenty-one," came the exact answer. "But it's not just that. Boone still has his way to make. This fall the legislature—two years hence a race for Congress. It's all a very long road."
The soldier nodded his head in understanding. "Yes, it's the waiting game that strains the staunchest morale," he admitted. "And you realize that it won't grow easier. But what of Morgan himself?"
"I guess if there were no Boone," she made candid admission, "Morgan would have won. He has force and power—and I am a worshipper of those things in a man. I thought at first he was a prig, but he's developed. It may be generosity or it may be calculation, but he will neither consent to give me up—nor try to hurry me. He plays the game hard, but he plays it fair."
McCalloway rekindled the pipe that had died, and his next words followed a meditative cloud of smoke from his lips. "It's not hard to understand any man's loving you. I happen to know that more than a few have. Yet if any one might escape, I'd pick Morgan. For him social values and externals are ruling passions. For you they are incidental only."
Anne nodded, but her answer went arrow-straight to the core of the truth. "Morgan fancies me because he thinks I'm popular and well-born. It would make no difference to Boone if I were friendless."
Her confidant laughed. "Here comes Boone himself," he said, rising. "Of late he's been building his political fences and hasn't seen enough of you. I am going to leave you, but at any time that the counsel of an old fellow can help you, call on me, my dear. I'm always at your command—yours and his."