Luke began pacing up and down the floor of the barn.
Once more she spoke. “I’d be faithful to you, Luke, married or unmarried,—and I’d work, though I know you won’t believe that. But I can do quite hard work, when I like!”
By some malignity of chance, or perhaps by a natural reaction from her pleading words, Luke’s mind reverted to her tone and temper on that June morning when she insulted him by a present of money.
“No, Gladys,” he said. “It won’t do. You and I weren’t made for each other. There are certain things—many things—in me that you’ll never understand, and I daresay there are things in you that I never shall. We’re not made for one another, child, I tell you. We shouldn’t be happy for a week. I know myself, and I know you, and I’m sure it wouldn’t do.
“Don’t you fret yourself about Dangelis. If he finds out, he finds out—and that’s the end of it. But I swear to you that I know him well enough to know that you’ve nothing to be afraid of—even if he does find out. He’s not the kind of man to make a fuss. I can see exactly the way he’d take it. He’d be sorry for you and laugh at himself, and plunge desperately into his painting.
“I like Dangelis, I tell you frankly. I think he’s a thoroughly generous and large-minded fellow. Of course I’ve hardly seen him to speak to, but you can’t be mistaken about a man like that. At least I can’t! I seem to know him in and out, up hill and down dale.
“Make a fuss? Not he! He’ll make this country ring and ting with the fame of his pictures. That’s what he’ll do! And as for being horrid to you—not he! I know him better than that. He’ll be too much in love with you, too,—you little demon! That’s another point to bear in mind.
“Oh, you’ll have the whip-hand of him, never fear,—and our son,—I hope it is a son my dear!—will be treated as if it were his own.
“I know him, I tell you! He’s a thoroughly decent fellow, though a bit of a fool, no doubt. But we’re all that!
“Don’t you be a little goose, Gladys, and get fussed up and worried over nothing. After all, what does it matter? Life’s such a mad affair anyway! All we can do is to map things to the best of our ability, and then chance it.