"After all," she retorted, "there is no great difference between a storekeeper and a farmer. All my city friends know what you are, and I can find no fault with the way they treat me."
Hunter laughed as he glanced down at his hard brown hands and dusty attire.
"The point is that in your case the farmer husband does not put in an appearance. It might be different if he did."
Florence looked at him in silence for a moment or two. Though he had been to the creamery meeting he was very plainly dressed; his bronzed face and battered nails told their own tale of arduous toil in the open, and there was no doubt that he looked a prairie farmer. Yet he was, as she realized now and then, well favored in a way; a man who might have made his mark in a different station, widely read and quietly forceful. Indeed, his inflexibility on certain points, though it sometimes angered her, compelled her deference.
"Oh," she cried at length, "it doesn't cost you much self-denial to stay behind. It's easy for you to be content. You like this life."
"Yes," returned Hunter quietly; "I'm thankful that I do. It's what I was made for. However, I don't wish to force too much of it on you, and so I'll give you a check for the three hundred dollars."
He crossed the room and, opening a desk, sat down at it for a minute or two. Then he came back and laid a strip of paper on the table in front of Florence.
"After all," she conceded, "as I was away a good deal of last winter, it's rather liberal, Elcot."
Hunter, without answering her, went quietly out.