John Hunter noticed that she did not refuse outright to consent to the early marriage and drew her complacently to him.
“I couldn’t wait that long, sweet. I want you and I want you now.”
He drew her close, in a firm, insistent grasp of his strong arm. Her resistance began to melt.
“I love you,” his voice said close to her ear. She felt his eyes seeking hers. His was the position of advantage. Elizabeth loved love, and she had never had it before. She had never been wanted for love’s sake. She wished to believe him. It came over her that she had wronged him by even the thought of an advantage having been taken of her. John’s arm was about her, he was pleading his love. Why be unpleasant about it? It was only a little thing. As she had said in her engagement hour, Elizabeth wanted love till she could die for it. She gave up, though something in her held back and was left hungry.
As John Hunter drove home to Liza Ann’s waiting dinner he said to himself:
“Gosh! but I’m glad I got that letter off. I knew I’d better do it this morning or she’d be hanging back. It worked better than I had any reason to expect. She’s going to be easy to manage. Mother ain’t able to cook for hired men. She’s never had it to do—and she don’t have to begin. This school business is all foolishness, anyhow.”
Elizabeth did not stand as usual and watch her lover drive toward home. Something in her wanted to run away, to cry out, to forget. She was torn by some indefinable thing; her confidence had received a shock. She went back to the house, but to sew was impossible now. She decided to go home, to walk. The long stretches of country road would give time and isolation in which to think. She announced her determination briefly as she passed through the kitchen, oblivious of Aunt Susan’s questioning eyes. Snatching up the large sunbonnet which was supposed to protect her from the browning effects of Kansas winds and sun, she told the older woman, who made no effort to disguise her astonishment at the sudden change, to tell John to come for her on the morrow, and set off toward the north.
Elizabeth knew that her father’s temper made her homegoing an unsafe procedure, but the tumult within her demanded that she get away from Susan Hornby and think her own thoughts unobserved.
But though the walk gave her time to think, Elizabeth was no nearer a decision when she sighted the Farnshaw cottonwoods than she had been when she started out. The sun burned her shoulders where the calico dress was thin, and she wiped her perspiring face as she stopped determinedly to come to some conclusion before she should encounter her mother.
“I suppose I ought to give up to him,” she said, watching a furry-legged bumblebee as it moved about over the face of a yellow rosin weed flower by the roadside. “I wouldn’t care if it weren’t for his mother. I’d like to get some of these country ways worked out of me before I have to see too much of her. She’ll never feel the same toward me if she has to tell me what to do and what not to do. If only he didn’t want me so badly. If only I could have one year away.”