Fair came in and Nance presented him to her two relatives.
Mrs. Allison looked deep in his face with her discerning eyes as she gave him her toil-hard hand and nodded unconsciously.
With Bud it was a different matter.
There was a faint coldness in his young face, a sullen disapproval. But Nance saw none of these things. Her eyes were dark with the sudden dilation of the pupils which this man’s presence always caused. There was a soft excitement in her.
For a little while they sat in the well-worn, well-scrubbed and polished room which was parlor, dining-room and kitchen, and talked of the warmth of the season, the many deer that were in the hills, and such minor matters, while Sonny clung to the man and devoured his face with adoring eyes.
Then the mother, harking back to the customs of another time, another environment, rose, bade good-night, signaled her son and retired to the inner regions.
Bud spoke with studied coldness and shambled after her.
Nance regarded this unusual proceeding with some astonishment. She did not realize that this was the peak of proper politeness in the backwoods of her Mammy’s day—that a girl must have her chance and a clear field when a man came “settin’ up” to her.
And so it was that presently she found herself sitting beside Brand Fair in the doorway, for the man preferred the inconspicuous spot, while Sonny sighed with happiness in his arms and Dirk sat gravely on his plumy tail at his master’s knee.
Diamond stood like a statue in the farther shadows.