Nancy flushed in vexation.
"Well, I'm trying to—the best way I know how! I do like you—I'm going to be as honest as I can be! I just couldn't ever—no matter how much I might like the farmer—stand for—for a farm like Judson's!"
To Nancy's unutterable amazement Peter Hyde commenced to laugh, very softly, with a look in his eyes that caressed her. What an unexplainable creature he was—anyway!
"When my play is produced," Nancy went on, airily, "I shall invite you to come down and sit in a box and see it—and maybe, you'll bring Miss Denny with you!" She wanted to punish him.
But Peter Hyde, the incorrigible, was looking neither crestfallen nor disheartened. He seized both of Nancy's hands and held them very close.
"I'll come! When that play is produced you can just bet I'll be in the stage box and it won't be Miss Denny that's with me either! You haven't told me, Nancy—that you did not love me! You've just said you didn't like—pigs and cows and hired men and Judson's in general. Dear, I'm not going to let you answer me—now! I'm not even going to say good-bye! You're a tired little girl. If I go, will you promise me to go straight to bed?"
In her astonishment Nancy submitted to the impetuous kiss he pressed against her fingers. When but a few moments before her heart had been torn with pity that she must hurt this man, now he was, in a masterful way, sending her off to bed as though she was a very little girl! And nothing in his tone or manner suggested anything but utter peace of mind and heart.
But Nancy was tired—so very tired that it was pleasant to be led up the path toward the house, to think that someone—even Peter Hyde—cared enough about her to beg her "not to open an eye for twenty-four hours."
And of course it was because the day had held so much for her that upon reaching her room, she threw herself across her bed and burst into a passion of tears.