“Mr. Wade,” she said, at last, “I’m only nineteen years old, but up in Castonia settlement we see what men are without the wrappings on them. I don’t know much about real society, but I’ve read about it, and I guess society women get sort of dazzled by the outside polish and don’t see things very clear. But up our way, with what they see of men, girls get to be women young. You are a college graduate and a school-teacher and all that, and I’m only nineteen, but—well, it just seems to me I can’t help reaching over like this—”
She patted his arm.
“—And what I feel like saying is, ‘Poor boy!’”
There was such vibrant sympathy in her voice that though he set his teeth, clinched his hands, and summoned all his resolution, his nervous strain slackened and the tears came into his eyes—tears that had been slowly welling ever since he had turned from John Barrett’s door.
It was woman’s attempt at consolation that broke through his restraint.
“I don’t blame you much for squizzlin’ a little,” broke in the stage-driver, who saw this emotion without catching the conversation. “He did bring his huck down solid when he stamped. But I’ve been calked myself, and a tobacker poultice allus does the business for me—northin’ better for p’isen in a wound.”
The chaney man reached his hand to the girl under the shelter of the seat-back.
“Shake!” he said, simply. “I’ve come up here to stay awhile, and it’s good to feel that I’ve got one friend that’s—that’s a woman.”
“And you—” She faltered and paused to listen, lips apart.