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“Yes, J. H. Allen, of Sioux City.”

“I thought so. I’ve heard you speak.”

The young lawyer was a tall, slender, dark-eyed man, rather somber in appearance. He did not respond to the invitation in the conductor’s voice.

“When do you reach the junction?”

“Next stop. We’re only a few minutes late. Expect to meet friends there?”

“No; thought I’d get a lunch, that’s all.”

At the junction the car became pretty well filled with people. Two or three Norwegian families came clattering in, the mothers clothed in heavy shawls and cheap straw hats, the flaxen-haired children in faded cottonade and blue denims. They filled nearly half the seats. Several drummers came in, laughing loudly, bearing heavy valises. Then Allen heard above the noise the shrill but sweet voice of a girl, and caught the odor of violets as two persons passed him and took a seat just before him.

The man he knew by sight and reputation as a very brilliant young lawyer, Edward Benson, of Heron Lake. The girl he knew instantly to be utterly alien to this land and people. She was like a tropic bird seen amid the scant foliage of northern hills. There was evidence of great care and taste in every fold of her modish dress. Her hat was simple but in the latest city fashion, and her gloves were spotless. She gave off an odor of cleanliness and beauty.

She was very young and slender. Her face was piquant but not intellectual, and scarcely beautiful. It pleased rather by its life and motion and oddity than by its beauty. She looked at her companion in a peculiar way–trustfully almost reverently–and yet with a touch of coquetry which seemed perfectly native to every turn of her body or glance of her eyes.

The young lawyer was a fine Western type of self-made man. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but walked a little stooping, like a man of fifty. He wore a long Prince Albert frock coat hanging loosely from his rather square shoulders. His white vest was a little soiled by his watch chain and his tie was disarranged.

His face was very fine and good. His eyes were gray-blue, deep and quiet but slightly smiling, as were his lips, which his golden-brown mustache shaded but did not hide. He was kept smiling in this quizzical way by the nervous chatter of the girl beside him. His profile, which was the view Allen had of him, was handsome. The strong, straight nose and abrupt forehead formed a marked contrast to the rather characterless nose and retreating forehead of the girl.

The first words that Allen distinguished out of the merry war in which they seemed engaged were spoken in the tone of pretty petulance such women use, a coquette’s defense.

“You did, you did, you did. Now! You know you did. You told me that. You told me you despised girls like me.”

“I said I despised women who had no object in life but dress,” he replied, rather soberly.

“But you were hopping on me; you meant me, now! You can’t deny it. You despise me, I know you do!” She challenged his flattery in her pouting self-depreciation.

The young man tried to stop her in her course, to change her mood, which was descending to real feeling. His low words could not be heard.

“Yes, yes, try to smooth it over, but you can’t fool me any more. But I don’t want you to flatter me and lie to me the way Judge Stearns did,” she said, with a sudden change of manner. “I like you because you’re square.”

The phrase with which she ended seemed to take on a new meaning uttered by those red lips in childish pout.

“Now, why are you down on the judge? I don’t see,” said the man, as if she had gone back to an old attack.

“Well, if you’d seen what I have you’d understand.” She turned away and looked out of the window. “Oh, this terrible country! I’d die out here in six weeks. I know I should.”