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Ordinarily he was a man of much facility and ease in addressing women, but be was vastly disconcerted by her manner. He sat rather silently waiting for the room to clear. When the visitors intimated that they must go, he rose with cheerful alacrity.

"I’ll get your horse for you. "

He helped hitch the horse into the buggy, and helped the girls in with a return of easy gallantry, and watched them drive off with joy. At last the field was clear.

They returned to the sitting room, where the old folks remained for a decent interval, and then left the young people alone. His courage returned then, and he turned toward her with resolution in his voice and eyes.

"Lucindy," he began.

"Miss Kennedy, please," interrupted Lucindy with cutting emphasis.

"I’ll be darned if I do," he replied hotly. "What’s the matter with you? Since going to Minneapolis you put on a lot of city airs, it seems to me. "

"If you don’t like my airs, you know what you can do!"

He saw his mistake.

"Now see here, Lucindy, there’s no sense in our quarreling. "

"I don’t want to quarrel; I don’t want anything to do with you. I wish I’d never seen you. "

"Oh, you don’t mean that! After all the good talks we’ve had. "

She flushed red. "I never had any such talks with you. "

He pursued his advantage.

"Oh, yes, you did, and you took pains that I should see you. "

"I didn’t; no such thing. You came poking into the kitchen where you’d no business to be. "

"Say, now, stop fooling. You like me and–"

"I don’t. I hate you, and if you don’t clear out I’ll call father. You’re one o’ these kind o’ men that think if a girl looks at ’em that they want to marry ’em. I tell you I don’t want anything more to do with you, and I’m engaged to another man, and I wish you’d attend to your own business. So there! I hope you’re satisfied. "

Claude sat for nearly a minute in silence, then he rose. "I guess you’re right. I’ve made a mistake. I’ve made a mistake in the girl. " He spoke with a curious hardness in his voice. "Good evening, Miss Kennedy. "

He went out with dignity and in good order. His retreat was not ludicrous. He left the girl with the feeling that she had lost her temper and with the knowledge that she had uttered a lie.

He put his horses to the buggy with a mournful self-pity as he saw the wheels glisten. He had done all this for a scornful girl who could not treat him decently.’As he drove slowly down the road he mused deeply. It was a knock-down blow, surely. He was a just man, so far as he knew, and as he studied the situation over he could not blame the girl. In the light of her convincing wrath he comprehended that the sharp things she had said to him in the past were not make-believe–not love taps, but real blows. She had not been coquetting with him; she had tried to keep him away. She considered herself too good for a hired man. Well, maybe she was. Anyhow, she had gone out of his reach, hopelessly.

As he came past the Haldemans’ he saw Nina sitting out under the trees in the twilight. On the impulse he pulled in. His mind took another turn. Here was a woman who was open and aboveboard in her affection. Her words me
ant what they stood for. He remembered how she had bloomed out the last few months. She has the making of a handsome woman in her, he thought.