Josephine checked an ejaculation of impatience. The savage was incorrigible—quite! Him, and his everlasting Plutina! Perverse curiosity overcame discretion. Perhaps, too, after all, he only needed guidance. She tried to believe, though vainly, that only shyness prevented him from improving an opportunity any other man would have coveted.
“Tell me,” she said softly, with a sympathetic lure in her tones, “is Plutina so very beautiful?”
The lure was effective. Zeke turned to her with the hazel eyes darkly luminous in the moonlight.
“Tiny’s beautiful,” he answered tenderly; and there was music now in the slow drawl. “I ’low she’s the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“I’m afraid you’re prejudiced,” Josephine objected, with a disarming laugh. “Of course, you ought to think so, but, really you know, you haven’t quite seen all the beautiful women in the world. Now, have you?”
“All I need to,” was the confident assurance. “Why,” he continued with an apologetic smile for his boldness. “I done seen you-all, Miss Blaise, an’ 123 I reckon you-all are about as beautiful as a woman kin be—’ceptin’ Plutina.”
The tribute was potent from its very unexpectedness. It eased the chagrin from which vanity had suffered. Evidently, her charms were not disregarded. It was simply that this lover had given his heart, and that he was loyal. The girl sighed a little enviously at the realization. She knew too well that many, perhaps most, in her world were not loyal, even when their hearts were given. She wondered if, in truth, there awaited her the boon of a like faithfulness. Yet she persevered in her probing.
“Out in the world,” she said musingly, “where things are so different from up in your mountains, you may change. It may be you won’t want to go back, to the hills—to Plutina.”
A flush of wrath burned in Zeke’s cheeks, visible in the gloom.
“Hit ain’t fittin’ fer you-all to say no such thing, Miss Blaise. But I kin fergive ye, kase ye hain’t seen our mountings. They hain’t no other place more beautiful. Mister Sutton done told me so, an’ he’s been all over the hull world. An’, besides, hit’s home. A man what don’t love his home country better’n any other—why, mum, he’s jest a plain skunk.... An’ Plutiny, she’s the best part o’ 124 home. There hain’t no land so beautiful, nor no woman. No, mum, I sha’n’t change—never! I kain’t!”