So she, too, had that unanswerable reason which all women can claim.
"I feel sorry for her, because I don't think she has been happy. She has lived in cities all her life, and the cities have taken something from her they can never give back."
"Whut?"
"All things which you, living here in the hills, possess, and which are a woman's most precious gifts; purity, innocence, womanhood."
"I don't know 'zackly whut you mean."
"I shan't try to put it into simpler words just now, Dryad. But in the eyes of all true people you are worth more than a thousand Beryl Dranes."
She pursed her lips and gave a whistle of astonishment.
"Has Buck been here lately?" I asked.
"Not since I seen—I saw you on the log bridge."
Then for a time we remained silent. The day was intensely hot. The encroaching sun burned the yellow dog which had been lying in the yard, and he arose reluctantly and slouched over into the deeper shade by the foundation of the house—into a dusty hole which no doubt he had previously dug in a search for coolness. There, after gnawing his ribs, his black nose wrinkling oddly as he did so, he dropped his chin upon the ground and slowly closed his eyes. A rigor passed over the side where the uncaptured flea still lingered, then, with a sigh, the dog slept. A brown hen, wings outheld from her body and bill agape, strolled dazedly through the shimmering air, singing that dolorous, unmusical, droning song begotten by the temperature. I have never heard that song from a hen's throat with the thermometer under ninety. It must have been an effect of the heat. Beyond, the green vastitudes stretched endlessly—away to where the big wicked world throbbed and seethed and strove. All these externals passed before my vision in a twinkling, and then my gaze was back on the girl sitting quietly by me, looking with eyes which sent no message to her brain upon the curving lines which meant knowledge. Her hair was up again to-day—for bodily comfort, I judge—and damp, curled strands clung flat to her milk-white neck. Below these, tiny drops of moisture stood, like baby pearls upon porcelain. I could not grow accustomed to the dazzling effect produced by her piled-up tresses. I could see neither comb, barette, nor pins, but no doubt a number of the "invisible" variety of the last were tucked away somewhere in the intricacies of that matchless coronet.