“Humph!” he snorted in disgust. However, a man could not leave a woman with a baby in her arms standing on his doorstep on a raw February day.
“How do you do, Uncle Nate?” the girl said timidly as soon as he was near enough to accost.
Nathan’s greeting was short and inhospitable. He did not offer to shake hands, nor pretend to see the hand she extended to him. Instead, he opened the door and invited her gruffly to enter. Closing the door behind them, he went to the stove and began to stir the fire industriously.
Elizabeth saw that she must have the difficulty over at once or her courage would wilt. Setting Jack on the floor, she went to Nathan and put her hand on his arm detainingly.
“You have fire enough, Uncle Nate. Let me talk to you.”
“Well?” he said briefly.
The girl was staggered by the nature of her reception. It was worse than she had expected. Luther Hansen’s estimate of the real situation had been only too right. She stood before Nathan Hornby trembling and disconcerted by the wall of his silence. The old kitchen clock ticked loudly, she could hear her own pulses, and the freshly stirred fire roared—roared in a rusty and unpolished stove. Dust lay thick on the unswept floor. Nathan needed her. She would win her way back to his heart.
“Uncle Nate, I don’t blame you one bit if you aren’t nice to me. I haven’t deserved it, but——”
“I guess you needn’t ‘Uncle Nate’ me any more,” he said when she paused.
His speech was bitter and full of animosity, but it was better than his compelling silence.