She flashed a glance at him; there was an ineffable shimmer in her long-lashed eyes; she made a comical little grimace. "I've said the last word between me and him," she answered. "I got a humble letter from him yesterday begging my pardon for what he'd tried to do, and saying he'd behave like a gentleman from now on, if I'd only let him come out again."
"Well, it was time he was apologizing," Henley cried. "For a little I'd have—well!"
Dixie smiled and looked at him eagerly. "Did that make you mad, Alfred—really mad?"
"I don't think I ever was madder in all my life." He walked unsuspectingly into her trap. "I driv' away soon after or I don't know what would have happened. The more I thought about it the madder I got. Once I started to turn round and go back. I would, if I hadn't thought he was such a weak fool. It ain't done with; I can't think about it without wanting to mash something. I reckon me 'n him had better stay apart."
"We ain't going to have any row about that, Alfred," Dixie said, quite seriously. "You know you would bear a lot rather than have folks say a—a married man was taking up for me in that way. If you ever meet him, and the thing comes up, you must remember that one thing. My character's all I've got, Alfred; if you are what I think you are, you'd think twice before compromising me like that. Carrie Wade would talk then, sure enough. Married men don't go about having fisticuffs over girls that live next door to 'em without folks wondering, and I tell you I'm like that fellow Cæsar's wife—I'm too good to be wondered about in any shape or form."
"I know it—God knows I know it," Henley responded, under his trembling breath. "You needn't be afraid, Dixie. I'll take care. But you didn't tell me what answer you made to—to Long's apology, or whether you was going to let him come again or not."
"I wrote him a pretty nice sort of a letter." She was laughing as she bent over her pail, but he didn't know it. "You see, Alfred, I was afraid you had hurt the poor fellow's feelings that day, and I thought somebody ought to be mild-tempered. I told 'im that wasn't no place or time, anyway, to kiss a girl—right in front of the door of her house—that a girl naturally liked to be wheedled awhile before she set in on such familiar terms, and that if it had been a third visit, instead of jest the second, that I'd have taken him for a stroll down by the creek. There's a foot-log there plumb hid by willows, Alfred, and I always thought it would be fine to set on it with your feet dangling over the stream and see two sweethearts reflected in the clear water, his arm round her waist and her head on his shoulder. Now, that's the sort of thing this chicken has always had a yearning for, and—" Dixie tittered inaudibly in the pail and said nothing more.
He had drawn himself erect and stood as full of despair as the night was full of darkness. She heard him utter a low groan, but that was all. She peered up at him stealthily, and then, with a face warm with content, she resumed her work. He stood silent till she rose.
"Now that dratted calf can come to the second table," she said, in the most uneventful tone imaginable. "Alfred, will you please let him in? He's about to butt the gate down."
He walked stiffly across the lot and opened the gate. The calf shot past him like an animated cannon-ball. He met her as, with the pail on her arm, she had turned toward the cottage.