"Thank you," Tilly said, taking it and smiling sweetly. "Good night. Remember what I told you." Then she turned back to John. "You must say good night to them. They are rather particular, and will think it strange if you don't. There they are in the hall, all three of them."
He obeyed. How he got through it he never knew. He bore away with him a blurred impression of the farmer's red face, too affectionate handclasp; Mrs. Teasdale's fat and squatting movement as she silently and timidly bowed; and Sally's gushing appreciation of his coming, and her regrets at not having seen more of him through the evening.
Joel and Martha Jane were getting into the buggy. The latter leaned over a wheel to kiss Tilly. Joel raised his hat, and John found himself imitating the salutation, and despising it. He gave his arm to Tilly and they started home. The road ahead of them was dusty, and Joel's horse stirred the powdered clay into a cloud as he trotted ahead of them. This fact in itself angered John. He coughed and sniffed, but said nothing.
"I hope you liked the party," Tilly began. Her hand rested on John's arm in the same confiding way as formerly, but it stirred him no longer.
"I thought it was awful, silly, stupid!" he declared. "I never knew that grown-up people could act that way."
"I'm sorry," Tilly sighed. "I was afraid you would not enjoy so many strangers. It would not be natural for you to feel as much at home as the rest. You see, they have been going together for years, and, moreover, you said you had not been accustomed to such things."
"No, and I have not missed anything," he threw back.
She made no denial. Her hold on his arm had a caressing quality that would be hard to define. She seemed to understand him better than he understood himself. "Yes, I was afraid you wouldn't like it," she rejoined, "for you are different from most persons. You are the strangest man I ever knew—the very, very strangest. Your face is as smooth as a boy's, and yet somehow you seem old in—in experience—sad experience, too, I should think. You are rough on the outside, but I know you are pure gold on the inside."
"Pure gold, rubbish!" he sneered, inwardly. Had he not just heard a girl say that Joel Eperson was the best man alive? What did a woman's opinion amount to, anyway? And how could Tilly expect him to be such a fool as to believe her when she had acted as she had that evening with another man? The memory of this fired him afresh and he suddenly shook her hand from his arm and with bowed head strode along. He was breathing now like a beast of burden hard driven by pain.
"What is the matter?" Tilly asked, blandly, although she knew full well that she was responsible for his present mood, and, reaching out, she took his arm again. He did not lift it into place, and her hand slid down his wrist till his fingers were clasped by her pleading ones.