“Why isn’t it? I’m a ranchman’s daughter. It doesn’t shock or offend me to see things that might distress a city girl.” She cast about in her mind for another way to put it. “I remember my mother leaving us once for days to look after a homesteader who had been hurt ’way up on Rabbit Ear Creek. Why, that’s what all the women on the frontier did.”
“The frontier days are past,” he said. “And that’s beside the point, anyhow. I’ll have him well looked after. You needn’t worry about that.”
“But I would,” she urged. “I’d worry a lot. I want to go myself, Justin—to make sure it’s all right and that everything’s being done for him that can be. You think it’s just foolishness in me, but it isn’t.”
She put her hand shyly on his sleeve. The gesture was an appeal for understanding of the impulse that was urgent in her. If he could only sympathize with it and acknowledge its obligation.
“I think it’s neither necessary nor wise. It’s my duty, not yours, to have him nursed properly. I’ll not shirk it.” He spoke with the finality of a dominant man who has made up his mind.
Betty felt thrown back on herself. She was disappointed in him and her feelings were hurt. Why must he be so obtuse, so correct and formal? Why couldn’t he see that she had to go? After all, a decision as to what course she would follow lay with her and not with him. He had no right to assume otherwise. She was determined to go, anyhow, but she would not quarrel with him.
“When are you going up to Black’s?” she asked.
“At once.”
“Do take me, please.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t best, dear girl.”