“I'm afraid, Ned, it wouldn't much help the matter even if I were to chastise the stranger.”
“It would cure him of his impudence. It would make him know how to treat you; and if the rest of your grievance comes from Margaret Cooper, there's a way to end that too.”
“How! you wouldn't have me fight her?” said William Hinkley, with an effort to smile.
“Why, we may call it fighting,” said the advocate for such wholesale pugnacity, “since it calls for quite as much courage sometimes to face one woman as it does to face three men. But what I mean that you should do with her is to up and at her. Put the downright question like a man 'will you?' or 'won't you?' and no more beating about the bush. If she says 'no!' there's no more to be said, and if I was you after that, I'd let Stevens have her or the d—l himself, since I'm of the notion that no woman is fit for me if she thinks me not fit for her. Such a woman can't be worth having, and after that I wouldn't take her as a gracious gift were she to be made twice as beautiful. The track's before you, William Hinkley. Bring the stranger to the hug, and Margaret Cooper too, if she'll let you. But, at all events, get over the grunting and the growling, the sulky looks, and the sour moods. They don't become a man who's got a man's heart, and the sinews of a man.”
William Hinkley leaned against the fireplace with his head resting upon his hand. The other approached him.
“I don't mean to say anything, Bill, or even to look anything, that'll do you hurt. I'm for bringing your trouble to a short cut. I've told you what I think right and reasonable, and for no other man in Kentucky would I have taken the pains to think out this matter as I have done. But you or I must lick Stevens.”
“You forget, Ned. Your eagerness carries you astray. Would you beat a man who offers no resistance?”
“Surely not.”
“Stevens is a non-combatant. If you were to slap John Cross on one cheek he'd turn you the other. He'd never strike you back.”
“John Cross and Stevens are two persons. I tell you the stranger WILL fight. I'm sure of it. I've seen it in his looks and actions.”