Seth looked up at his brother with a blanching face, in which fright and amazement blended. “What is that line of Congreve’s about Hell having no fury like a woman scorned?” he asked mechanically.
It was John’s turn to stare. Gradually a light began to spread in his mind, and make things visible whose existence he had not suspected before. “Well, you are a simpleton!” he said.
“Don’t I know it?” was the pained, contrite response.
The brothers walked on a few yards in silence. Then John said “Of course, you needn’t tell me any more of this than you want to—but at least I can ask you—how much of a fool have you made of yourself up at the farm?”
“That’s hard to say. Just now I’m inclined to think that I am the champion ass of the world.”
“Well, you’re displaying some sense now, anyway. What have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything. That’s the foolish part of it all.”
John stopped in turn, and looked his brother’s face attentively over. “Go on, now,” he said, “and tell me what there is of it. There’s no use in my butting my brains out against a stone wall, guessing at such an inscrutable mess as this seems to be.”
“It’s hard to tell—there isn’t anything specially to tell. I simply got sort of sentimental about Isabel, you know—she was lonely and disappointed in life, and my coming to the farm was about the only chance for company she got, and all that—and then I found the thing might go too far and so I stopped it—and to clinch the thing, asked Annie to marry me. That’s what there is of it.”
“That’s good as far as it goes. Go on, youngster; out with the rest of it!”