"Yes, I saw him," Henley said, reluctantly. "I didn't make a point of looking him up. He ran about searching for me. I've washed my hands of that—that matter, Dixie. I ain't no hand at match-making, nohow. It ain't my turn. I get all mixed up, and blunder at it. I'll never set myself up to pick out a—a suitable mate for any woman again. There ain't none in existence—there ain't none half good enough for you, nohow. It makes me sick to—to think about a fellow like—well, no better in many ways than this here Long is—having the gall to think he—that you'd be willing to live with him the rest of your days as if there was a single thing in common betwixt you. He told me about what he done—what he tried to do out at the fence when he started off the other night, and, well—"
"Well what?" she cried, eagerly, the corners of her mouth curving upward as she eyed him covertly.
"Why, you know well enough what the fool done, Dixie!" Henley said, unaware of the meshes into which her curiosity was leading him. "When he told me about it, in his offhand way, as if he had just done an ordinary, every-day act, I come as nigh as peas mashing his big, flathering mouth. I've been boiling mad ever since. I rolled and tumbled in bed last night, and it's stuck to me all day. Somehow I just can't shake it off."
"You mean, Alfred"—and she paused at the roadside, and put out her hands to his arms, and studied his face with the eagerness of a child searching for the confirmation of something hoped for and yet not absolutely attainable—"do you mean that it actually made you mad when he told you. Tell me how; tell me why. You wouldn't have—felt that way if—if it had been some other girl, would you?"
"How do I know?" Henley cried, hot from the memory of the thing spoken of. "I don't know whether I'd feel mad or not. I never tried it. It is the first time I was ever up against a thing as aggravating as that was. The idea of him actually trying to kiss you, and—and put his arms around you, and holding to you, and—and—"
"He's a bad, mean thing, ain't he, Alfred?" And her merry laugh rang through the quiet wood, plunging him into deeper mystification than ever. "But of course he couldn't know that I'd not be willing to be hugged and kissed right there at the fence, with a crippled woman peeping out at the window, and a half-blind one standing by, begging for a report of what's taking place. Before you married, Alfred, I'll bet you selected a better place than that when you wanted to kiss a girl. That fellow lives in a big town and I live here in the backwoods, but I can learn him a thing or two."
"You can't fool me." Henley was sure of his ground now. "You wouldn't let that chump kiss you at any time or at any place. I was a fool to ever mention him to you; he ain't worthy to tie the shoes of a woman as noble and sweet and pretty as you are."
"Go it, go it, Alfred!" A delicate flush of delight had overspread her face, which was wreathed in smiles. There was a twinkling light in her eyes, and her laugh rang out sweeter and more merrily than ever. "If Jasper Long only knowed how to say nice things in your roundabout way I'd marry him if he was as poor as Job's turkey. You never have told me in so many words that—that you like my looks or—or like me, as for that matter; but when you get worked up, the sweetest things in heaven or earth slip out when you don't know it."
But grimly unpleasant thoughts had fastened themselves on Henley's bewildered brain, and he could only stare at her in sheer agony of suspense.
"Then you may—you may marry him, after all!" he said, under his breath. "You haven't fully decided yet. You may conclude that you and him—" His voice broke, and, like a dumb animal brought to bay, he stood staring at her, his mouth open, his lower lip quivering.