"Of course, Janet," he said, with an attempt at composure. "I can see how it must attract you—this opportunity of going off to college, and I don't mean to put anything in your way. Such questions a person has to decide for one's self, and I don't see how I can give you any help."
"Yes, there you are again. You just won't say yes or no; but I am sure all the time that you don't really want me to go. You'd like to keep me here at home, just an ignorant, stupid country girl. Why don't you want me to make something of myself, David? I know I've got ability, and you know it as well as I do, but it isn't of any use to me here. Wouldn't you feel proud of me if I went off and did something worth while?"
David could not answer at once. He sat with his eyes shut, his knees pressed rigidly against the pail, and against his head he felt the warm, throbbing pulse of the animal in front of him. Upon his mind a picture was forcing itself with cruel insistence. It was the Janet of a year hence, well-dressed, sedate, intellectual, with all her new college interests to talk of; and side by side with this he saw himself—what would he be? Just the same as ever, only a little more awkward and out of date, and when he talked it would be of—yes, his cows, and the new pig, and the price of potatoes! It was Loren who would be suited to her then; it was they who would sit under the trees together and the farmer could go about his chores. The impossibility of her continuing to love him struck him with a new pang of conviction, and he felt helpless before it.
"Why don't you say something, David?" asked the girl, rapping her foot on the floor and unconsciously pulling the kitten's fur. "You're not angry with me, are you?"
David saw that he must speak, and he determined to dissimulate no longer. "No, Janet, but can't you see how it must look to me? How can you expect me to be happy over it? Do you suppose, dear, that you could feel toward me, after a year at college, just as you do now? Don't you see how it would separate us and you'd have all your new friends and studies to take up your time and I'd just be plodding along here in the woods like a clod of turf? How could you ever keep on loving me? Don't you see, Janet, how it sort o' breaks my heart to say yes?"
The jets of milk shot into the pail with an angry rapidity. The bar of sunlight lay almost horizontally now across the upper emptiness of the barn, transforming the thick-hung cobwebs into golden draperies and accentuating the twilight gloom below. Janet threw the kitten out of her lap and, jumping from the chair, walked nervously to the window and looked out absently upon the meadow below.
"Well, I supposed it would come to that," she said, with some indignation in her voice. "It's nice to feel that you can't trust me out of your sight. Don't you think that if you really loved me as you say you'd be as glad as I was that I could get a better education? But of course, if you're afraid to trust me, why, I suppose I can give it up."
The strain of decision had been a hard one for Janet, and she was now on the verge of giving way under it. Her shoulders shook, and she put her face in her hands. David heard her sobbing softly.
"Janet," he said, "if you think that this is going to be a valuable thing for you, I'm not going to say a word against it. You know that every wish I've got is for your good, and that's God's truth. If you think it's best to go, I'm going to try to think so too, and I'll do everything I can to make you happy."
Janet had left the window and came toward him, a joyful smile breaking through her tears. "You are a dear, good boy, and I love you," she said, and allowed him to kiss her. He held her long in his big arms and his own eyes filled with burning tears.