"If he is so terribly precious," I said hotly, "I guess you had better take him back to Jasonville."
"Maybe I shall," she answered quietly. "I'd take him to the meanest little place in creation rather than know he had done any such thing as you say you have done!"
We were both pretty angry by this time, and yet we both smiled. She was such a snappy, strong little woman—I admired her all the time she was making me angry! Somehow it brought back all that time long ago when I had thought the world began and ended with her. We had never been so near each other since. And I think she felt somewhat in the same way.
"Well," I said at last, "I am not going to fight this thing out with you, May, or with any other woman. I have too much else on hand. I am answerable for all I do or have done. If you and Will don't like my company, why, we have got to do without you."
I wished I hadn't been so small as to make that fling. She flashed a look at me out of her eyes that brought me to my senses in a moment. I took her by the shoulders. "See here, May, we mustn't quarrel. Let's all hang together in this, as in other things. You women don't know what business means."
She smiled back into my eyes and retorted, "It seems to be just as well we don't!" In a moment more she added: "But you mustn't think that I can make up like this. You and I don't look at things in the same way."
"Never did!" I said dryly. "At any rate, you had better go up now and look after Sarah. She can't keep on this way. She's got to look at this more sensibly. She isn't like you, May!"
"No," May retorted, "she isn't! But this hurts her, too. Perhaps she cares more what folks say than I do. And she believes in her religion, Van."
"That's all right. Her religion tells her to forgive, and not to judge, and a few other sensible truths, which that minister seemed to forget to-day."
"I never expected to see you, Van Harrington, asking for quarter in that way!" she flashed.