"I hope you're satisfied, Dorinda," Nathan remarked, with hilarity.
"Yes, I'm satisfied."
"I fancied you looked kind of down in the mouth while we were in the room. You ain't changed your mind about wanting the farm, have you?"
"Oh, no, I haven't changed my mind."
"I'm glad of that. You never can tell about a woman. He seemed to think that Lena was good to look at."
Though she had believed that her anger was over, the embers grew red and then grey again. Middle age as an attitude of mind might enjoy an immunity from peril, but it suffered, she found, from the disadvantages of an unstable equilibrium.
"I wonder if he has forgotten Geneva," she observed irrelevantly.
At the reminder of that tragic figure Nathan's hilarity died. "When a thing like that has happened to a man," he responded, "he doesn't usually keep the dry bones lying around to look at."
The sun was beginning to go down and the sandy stretch of road, where the shadow of the surrey glided ahead of them, glittered like silver. After the intense heat of the day the fitful breeze was as torrid as the air from an oven.
"John Abner promised he would drive me over to the ice cream festival at the church," Lena said hopefully. There were pearly beads on her shell-like brow and Nathan's leathery face was streaming with perspiration.