"Finding her out ain't going to lighten the blow." Mrs. Henley shrugged her shoulders. "When a man—or a woman, for that matter—has full faith in a person, and finds out that the person ain't anything like he used to be, why, a body hardly knows what to think. I'm glad I'm going away, Alfred. You showed me this morning when I give you that chance to take me about a little here and there that you are changed. When I'm away you'll realize what you've missed, and I'll be glad of it. Absence, on my side, is the medicine you need to restore your senses."
"Well, we'll all certainly miss you." Henley was too honest—at least in domestic matters—to know that his assertion was insincere, and accustomed as he was in his dealings among men to assume exactly the shade of tone or set of face that went best with a statement, he now had as complete an air of regret and discomfort as the most exacting of wives could have wished.
"Well, I'm getting the drive I asked for," was her parting shot, and she leaned over and gave him a cold, stiff hand. "I'm taking it all by myself, as most married women have to do if they don't seek the attention of other men. But I'm going to do my duty to a human sufferer, and in that I'll get my reward."
He walked back to the store thoughtfully. "She's gone!" he said to himself. "She's ripping mad and got it in for me, that's certain. She's begun on a new line, and I'll bet she makes me smoke before she's through with me. I know what she wants well enough, but somehow I just can't do it. I might at one time, but I couldn't now to save my neck from the loop. The old man is plumb right. When a feller's love gets cold on the inside he can't warm it up by external applications. He's a matrimonial misfit, and the sooner he realizes it and is resigned the better he'll feel."
CHAPTER XXXI
ELL, the old gal's gone," Wrinkle remarked that day at sundown when Henley came in at the gate and found him seated on a dismantled beehive in the yard. "I reckon you seed 'er spin through town. For a woman goin' out as a sick-nuss or spiritual comforter to a chap kicked by a high-steppin' filly she certainly had a supply of frills and ruffles. Them valises was packed as tight as a compressed cotton-bale. She left behind her one solid wail of woe. Jane is afraid she'll never gratify yore taste for grub as well as Het did, an' she's in thar now humpin' herself to contrive new concoctions. Het kept boarders long enough to git stingy, an' I told my wife to turn over a new leaf for a change. I driv' a fat chicken in a fence-corner just now, and held its legs while she chopped its spout off. She knows how to fry 'em, an' if she kin see well enough to pick the pin-feathers off it will be all right. I'd put her biscuits agin any ever baked."
After a really enjoyable supper Henley went out under the trees to get the fresh air which, in invigorating gusts, swept up the valley along the mountain-range. He told himself that his reason for wandering down toward his barn was to avoid meeting Wrinkle, who he knew would soon appear from the kitchen, where he was helping his wife wash the dishes. He was aware, of course, that Dixie Hart's cow-lot adjoined his stable-yard, and he knew that it was the hour at which she went to milk, and yet he would not have admitted that he strolled thither in the hope of meeting her, but, nevertheless, he went.
He saw her entering the lot-gate, a bright tin pail in her hand, and he shielded himself with a jutting corner of his wagon-shed and watched her graceful approach through the dusk. He saw her get the tub of cow's food from the crib and give it to the animal, and then he heard her scream out, and, following her startled eyes, he saw that, having failed to close the gate behind her, the cow's calf had entered and was rushing to its mother. With an ejaculation of impatience Dixie threw her arms about the calf's neck and tried to pull it from the cow's bag, but it was of no avail. The strong young beast would wriggle from her clutch and dart back to its supper.