“A woman,” he went on, didactically, “ought not to be always thinking of herself.”
“I know that, David,” Barbara said meekly. “I try not to. But——”
“That’s just it!” he broke in quickly; “there’s always a ‘but’ in your mind and in your attitude towards me, and always has been. You needn’t deny it,” he added, openly complacent, in view of his own cleverness. “I know women.”
The girl looked at him in silence, a mutinous question behind her closed lips.
David smiled down at her brilliantly, his eyes, his tawny hair, his white teeth, and his ruddy color suggesting the magnificent youth and virility of a pagan deity, newly alighted on the common earth.
“The fact is, Barbara,” he went on confidently, “you’ve lived here so long practically alone that you’re a bit spoiled. What you need is to give up trying to control everything and everybody and just be a sweet little wife. Didn’t you know that?”
Her eyes drooped under the blue fire of his gaze. David laughed aloud.
“I’ll make you happy,” he said, possessing himself of her hand. “You won’t know yourself a year from now, little girl. All this worry will be over; and I’m never going to allow you to bother your dear little head again over farm-products and such things as cows, pigs, and chickens. I mean to give up a lot of that sort of farming. It doesn’t pay, and it’s a whole lot of useless bother and expense. There! what do you think of my horse? Isn’t he a beauty? Look at his head and eyes, will you? and the build and color of him? There’s blood for you, and I tell you he’s a hummer on the road!”
Barbara passed a knowing little hand over the satin neck, and the horse turned his large, full, intelligent eyes upon her with a whinny of welcome.
“He likes you, Barbie; first thing. Perhaps you can drive him after a while. But just now he’s like a certain little woman I know, a bit restive and needing a strong hand to guide and control. You don’t mind my seeing it so clearly, do you, dear?”