“Well, I am jealous,” he tried to smile at her, then went on with a touch of bitterness, “Do you know what I thought about as I sat watching the lights at Mrs. Allison’s? Well, as I came over to-day I passed a snowy field—and there was a scarecrow in the midst of it, fluttering his rags, a lonely thing, an ugly thing. Well, we’re two of a kind, Jane, that scarecrow and I.”
Her shocked glance stopped him. “Evans, you don’t know what you are saying.”
He went on recklessly. “Well, after all, Jane, the thing is this. It’s a man’s looks and his money that count. I’m the same man inside of me that I was when I went away. You know that. You might have loved me. The thing that is left you don’t love. Yet I am the same man——”
As he flung the words at her, her eyes met his steadily. “No,” she said, “you are not the same man.”
“Why not?”
“The man of yesterday did not think—dark thoughts——”
The light had gone out of her as if he had blown it with a breath. “Jane,” he said, unsteadily, “I am sorry——”
She melted at once and began to scold him, almost with tenderness. “What made you look at the scarecrow? Why didn’t you turn your back on him, or if you had to look, why didn’t you wave and say, ‘Cheer up, old chap, summer’s coming, and you’ll be on the job again’? To me there’s something debonair in a scarecrow in summer—he dances in the breeze and seems to fling defiance to the crows.”
He fell in with her mood. “But his defiance is all bluff.”
“How do you know? If he keeps away a crow, and adds an ear of corn to a farmer’s store—hasn’t he fulfilled his destiny?”