He could not explain. He was not sure that he cared to explain the terrible internal quakings which to him seemed so unmanly, so unlike any feelings that had ever come to him. He wondered if Eperson had actually spoken open words of love to her, and, if so, how had the fellow, with all his suave ability, managed it?
Another buggy passed. Tilly explained who the occupants of it were after she had greeted them. They were George Whitton and Ella Bell Roberts. Then she added, with a touch of seriousness:
"You ought to have lifted your hat just now."
"Lifted my hat? Why, I don't know her— I've never seen her before!" he retorted, with the irritation of a great mind descending to a triviality.
"Because he lifted his to me and you are with me," Tilly persisted in her mild rebuke. "It is the custom here, but it may not be at Ridgeville."
John was chagrined, but determined to hide it. "I have never heard of a man bowing to a man or a woman he never saw before," he fumed. "I don't care what you all do; it is foolishness out and out."
"Well, when you are in Rome," Tilly quoted in quite a grave tone, "you ought to do as the Romans do."
The thing rankled within him. The blood had mounted to his brow and stayed there. Even Tilly was telling him how to deport himself. He adored her, but he was angry enough to have sworn in her gentle, uplifted eyes. She observed his moody mien and playfully shook his arm.
"Don't be mad," she urged, sweetly. "I meant no harm, but I do want them all to like you, and I'm afraid they won't if you fail in little things like that just now. They won't understand—they will think you are stuck up, and I know you are not a bit vain. I am sure of that—as sure as I'm alive. If you were I'd not like you."
She had intimated that she liked him, and that ought to have been sufficient to quell the storm within him, but it did not quite. Her rebuke hurt far more than any which had ever come to him. She adroitly changed the subject. She spoke of the work on the court-house and praised his part of it, but what did that matter? He knew what his work was and he was just learning profound and relentless things about the difference between himself and her—between her puzzling environment and his, which was all too distinctly plain for his present comfort. As they neared Teasdale's and saw the lights streaming from the open doors and windows across the lush greensward and noted the considerable collection of horses and vehicles under the shade-trees and along the fences, he became conscious of an overwhelming timidity with which he felt unable to cope. Had Tilly been like himself and feared the entry into the light and easy gaiety of the chattering throng, he would not have felt so isolated. But her very unconsciousness of the thing as any sort of ordeal to be dreaded depressed him as emphasizing the fateful demarcation between her walk of life and his.