“The less he talks the more he will think,” she said. “He is stupid and ignorant; and now we know he is bad—a murderer at heart. What brains he has are inclined to craftiness and cunning. Hatred will stimulate them—and he is sure to hate you for that thrashing.”
“I believe you. He has hopes of my starving in the woods. But hatred is not the only sentiment I inspire in him. He is afraid of me.”
“Of course he is afraid of you. He will never stand up to you again in a fair fight, if he can avoid it.”
“That is not all. Fear of my fists is not his greatest fear of me. He would rather know me to be dead in the woods, by his lies, than know me to be here. This came to me when your grandfather was talking. Now I am beginning to understand things that I used to half see and half-heartedly wonder at; and of course I have read about them in books, as you have, too, I suppose. This has been an illuminating morning to me.”
She looked at him inquiringly; and there was a shadow of embarrassment in her eyes. She smiled and lowered her glance.
“When you talk like this I am certainly reminded of things I have read in books,” she said. “But that is not enough intelligent conversation, is it? What things do you mean?”
Akerley took pipe and tobacco from his pocket and regarded them fixedly in the palm of his hand.
“I mean jealousy—and things like that,” he said, in a somewhat stuffy voice. “Jealousy of one man for another—about a woman—and that sort of ro—er—thing.”
“Oh, that sort of thing! Are you really ignorant of things like that?—you, who have lived in the big world of men and women?”
Akerley glanced at her, then back at his pipe and tobacco. He produced a knife and fell to slicing a pipeful.