"Why, I refused him," Virginia answered.
"You did? You don't tell me! And how did his high and mighty lordship take that, I wonder?"
"It made him awfully mad. He almost swore at me, and took hold of my hand roughly. Then, from something I happened to say, he imagined that I was in love with—with some one else, and he made awful threats of what he might do."
"Ah, I see, I see, I see!" Ann muttered, as if to herself, her slow, thoughtful glance on her broad lands, which stretched out through the murky atmosphere. "It's wonderful how much your life is like mine used to be. The other night, lying in bed, I got to studying over it all, and it suddenly flashed on me that maybe it is the divine intention that I was to travel that rough road so I'd know how to lead you, that was to come on later, over the pits I stumbled in. And with that thought I felt a strange sort of peaceful contentment come over me. You see, I'm nearly always in a struggle against my inclination to treat Jane Hemingway's daughter half decent, and such thoughts as those kind o' ease my pride. If the Lord is making me pity you and like you, maybe it's the devil that is trying to pull me the other way. That's why I'm afraid I won't do to trust, wavering about like I am. In this fight I haven't the slightest idea which influence is going to win in the end. In a tight pinch I may be tempted to use our very friendship to get even with your mammy. When she faces me with that confident look in her eye and that hateful curl to her lip, I loose my grip on all that's worth a red cent in me."
"You couldn't do a wrong thing to save your life," said Virginia, putting out her hand and taking that of her companion.
"Don't you bet too high stakes on that," Ann replied, deeply touched. "I'm no saint. Right now I'm at daggers' points with nearly every neighbor I've got, and even my own child over the mountain. How I ever got this way with you is a mystery to me. You certainly were the last one I'd 'a' lifted a finger to help, but now—well, well—I reckon I'd worry a lots if you met with any further misfortune. But you are keeping back something, child. Did Langdon Chester seem to think that other 'somebody' could possibly be Luke King?"
Virginia flushed and nodded. "He seemed to think so, Mrs. Boyd."
Ann sighed. She was still holding Virginia's hand, and she now began timidly to caress it as it lay on her knee.
"I don't like the way it's turned out a bit," she said. "The Chester stock can't stand being balked in anything; they couldn't bear to be beat in love by a poor, self-made man like Luke, and great, big trouble may be brewing. Langdon might push a row on him. Luke is writing all sorts of things against the evil of war and fighting and the like, but under pressure he'd resent an insult. I'd hate to see him plumb mad. Then, again, Langdon might sink low enough to actually throw that imprudence of yours at him. If he did, that would be a match to powder. If Luke was a preacher and stood in the pulpit calling up mourners, he'd step down and act on that sort of an invitation. Virginia, if ever a man loved a woman, he loves you. His love is one of the exceptions to the rule I was talking about just now, and it seems to me that, no matter how you treat a man like that other scamp, you won't have a right to refuse Luke King. The truth is, I'm afraid he never could stand it. He's set his great, big, gentle soul on having you for his helpmeet, and I don't believe you will let any silly notion ruin it all. He's got brain enough to tackle the biggest human problems and settle them, but he'll never give his heart out but once."
Virginia withdrew her hand and swept it across her face, as if to brush away the flush upon it.