"You ain't goin' away while I'm sick?" she asked, following him with her eyes, unnaturally large.
"I won't never go 'way again if you don't want me to," he replied.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" she sighed restfully.
He was turning to go when she wailed reproachfully, "Pap, you didn't kiss baby!"
Anson turned and came back. "She's sleepin', an' I thought it wasn't right to kiss a girl without she said so."
This made Flaxen smile, and Anson went out with a lighter heart than he had had for two years. Kendall met him utside and said confidentially:
"I don't s'pose it was just the thing for me to do; but—confound it! I never could stand a sick-room, anyway. I couldn't do any good, anyway—just been in the way. She'll get over her mad in a few days. Think so?"
But she did not. Her singular and sudden dislike of him continued, and though she passively submitted to his being in the room, she would not speak a word to him nor look at him as long as she could avoid it; and when he approached the baby or took it in his arms a jealous frown came on her face.
As for Anson, he grew to hate the sound of that little chuckle of Kendall's; the part in the man's hair and the hang of his cut-away coat made him angry. The trim legs, a little bowed, the big cuffs hiding the small, cold hands, and the peculiar set of his faultless collar, grew daily more insupportable.
"Say, looky here, Kendall," said he in desperation one day, "I wish you didn't like me quite so well. We don't hitch first rate—at least, I don't. Seems to me you're neglectin' your business too much."