There was a defiant little curve on her red lips and the brave hopefulness of her face was inspiring.
“Go and do your work, Thaine. Fight your battles, push back your frontier line, win your wilderness, and make a world-wide name for yourself. But when all is done don’t forget that the fight your father and mother made here, and are making today, is honorable, wonderful; and that the winning of a Kansas farm, the kingdom of 287 golden wheat, bordered round by golden sunflowers, is a real kingdom. Its sinews of strength uphold the nation.”
“Why, you eloquent little Jayhawker!” Thaine exclaimed. “You should have been an orator on the side, not an artist. But all this only makes me care the more. I’m proud of you. I’d want you for my chum if you were a boy. I want you for my friend, but down under all this I want you for my girl now, and afterwhile, Leigh, I want you for my own, all mine. Don’t you care for me? Couldn’t you learn to care, Leigh? Couldn’t you go with me to a broader life somewhere out in the real big world? Couldn’t we come some time to the Purple Notches and build a home for just our summer days, because we have seen these headlands all our lives?”
Leigh’s head was bowed, and the pink blooms left her cheeks.
“Thaine,” she said in a low voice that thrilled him with its sweetness, “I do care. I have always cared so much that I have hoped this moment might never come.”
Thaine caught her arm eagerly.
“No! no! We can never, never be anything but friends, and if you care more than that for me now, if you really love me—”the voice was very soft—“don’t ask me why. I cannot tell you, but I know we can never be anything more than friends, never, never.”
The sorrow on her white face, the pathos of the great violet eyes, the firm outline of the red lips told Thaine Aydelot that words were hopeless. He had known her every mood from childhood. She never dallied nor hesitated. The grief of her answer went too deep for words to argue against. And withal Thaine Aydelot was very 288 proud and unaccustomed to being denied what he chose to want very much.
“Leigh, will you do two things for me?” he asked at length. The sad, quiet tone was unlike Thaine Aydelot.
“If I can,” Leigh answered.