“Don’t tell me I’m puttin’ it too strong. He’s got his eye set on you; told me so to my face.”
Kent saw bitter tears flood the girl’s eyes, but he went on.
“This is all true talk, Molly,” he asserted. “Look at the man—he may be a romantic figure in your eyes, seein’ you’re so young, but I’m tellin’ you that nine months a year he’s flat broke! It’d take him three months to earn the price of the dress you’re wearin’. I ain’t raised you careful-like, givin’ you every advantage a girl ought to have to see you waste yourself on a forty-dollar man!”
Level-eyed now, Molly searched the faces of the two men before her. Johnny Dice had spoken no word of love to her. Yes, but love was not a thing of words. It was something that came to life of its own volition, and grew and grew until it caught the hearts of men and women in a vise. Only when it had made its presence known would retrospection reveal the hundred little ways in which it had sought to announce itself from the very beginning.
Molly was permitted such a moment. What she beheld left her body trembling. Was this love? Did she love Johnny Dice? The thought had never occurred to her before. Was this feeling of comradeship, this boy and girl friendship, love? At least the thought was not unpleasant to her. Poor he might be, but Johnny was too much a man to be unworthy of love. The more she thought of it the greater became the tug on her heart. Anger, resentment, all her other emotions were blotted out. Even her insistence on fair play between the two men became less vital to the girl.
Whether she knew it or not, Molly was taking sides. And, as women have done down through the ages, she turned from her own to champion the man who desired her. She was no longer the judge, but the counsel for the defense.
“Were you better off at his age, father?” she asked.
Kent must have sensed the widening between them, for he answered almost surlily: “Times have changed. What was good enough for me ain’t good enough for you. Did he show you the picture of you he’s got in his pocket? Your picture—carryin’ it around!”
“Why, no, father. I can’t believe it. I haven’t had a picture taken in years.”
“Well, it was years since this one was took. You know the one you’ve got framed and hanging beside your door? He’s got a copy of it. I asked him for it. I don’t want my little girl’s picture goin’ the rounds of the cow camps. He wouldn’t give it up. Said he’d ask you if he could keep it. He didn’t, did he? Made some wild talk about its belonging to a dead man.”