“Yes,” said the old man; “her people, her horses, her dogs and cats, and even her servants and slaves.”
“Tender creature, who has a heart for a dog and not for a man!”
The old man’s loyalty to three generations of Philipses made him a stubborn defender, and he answered:
“She’d have no less a heart for a man if she loved him.”
“If she loved him!” echoed Peyton, and began to think.
“Ay, and a thousand times more heart, loving him as a woman loves a man.” Mr. Valentine spoke knowingly, as one acquainted by enviable experience with the measure of such love.
“As a woman loves a man!” repeated Peyton. Suddenly he turned to Valentine. “Tell me, does she love any man so, now?” Peyton did not know the relation in which Elizabeth and Major Colden stood to each other.
“I can’t say she loves one,” replied Valentine, judicially, “though—”
But Peyton had heard enough.
“By heaven, I’ll try it!” he cried. “Such 138 miracles have happened! And I have almost an hour!”