"No, you are not. You all want him to die."
"Don't say that, Louise. You know that I ain't that mean. But I acknowledge that I don't want you to marry him."
"What need you care? If I refuse to marry you what difference does it make to you whom I marry?"
"It makes this difference—that I would rather see you the wife of a man that can take care of you. Louise, they say that I'm slow about everything, and I reckon I am, but when a slow man loves he loves for all time."
"I don't believe it; don't believe that any man loves for all time."
"Louise, to hear you talk one might think that you have been grossly deceived, but I know you haven't, and that is what forces me to say that I don't understand you."
"You don't have to understand me. Nobody has asked you to."
She walked on and he strode beside her, stripping the leaves off the shrubs, looking down at her, worshipping her; and she, frail and whimsical, received with unconcern the giant's adoration.
"I told the Major that I loved you—"
"Told him before you did me, didn't you?" she broke in, glancing up at him.