“I know. You told me.” And it was then that their eyes had met and they had fallen into a momentary silence.
“But why are you farming?” she had exclaimed, brightly.
“For several reasons. First, the world needs food. Food is the greatest safeguard—I would almost say the only safeguard—against anarchy and chaos. Then, I want to learn by experience; to prove by my own demonstrations that my theories are workable—or that they’re not. And then, most of all, I love the prairies and the open life. It’s my whim, and I follow it.”
“You are very wonderful,” she had murmured. And then, with startling directness, “Are you happy?”
“As happy as I have any right to be. Happier than I have been since childhood.”
She had risen and walked to the mantelpiece; then, with an apparent change of impulse, she had turned and faced him. He had noted that her figure was rounder than in girlhood, her complexion paler, but the sunlight still danced in her hair, and her reckless force had given way to a poise that suggested infinite resources of character.
“Frank has done well, too,” she had said.
“So I have heard. I am told that he has done very well indeed.”
“He has made money, and he is busy and excited over his pursuit of success—what he calls success. He has given it his life. He thinks of nothing else—”
She had stopped suddenly, as though her tongue had trapped her into saying more than she had intended.