al that didn't, in
this day and time, when it is the main thing all humanity is out after.
And--and--" Her voice broke. She coughed and glanced aside.

"I'm not going over there, Dixie," he said, firmly. "I'm going to stick
right here, and do the best I can. Folks may talk some about me and
Hettie not living together, but I can't put up with all that rigmarole
over there. It would kill me."

"Aunt Mandy said you might say that at _first_." Dixie steadied her
voice. "She told Joe so in my hearing. She said it kinder nettled _some_
proud men to have it said they was beholden to their wives, but she
said--_she told Joe_--that the proudest man would give in to a situation
like that sooner or later. That's why the boy felt so bad, I reckon.
He's sure you are going to leave this measly little hole, and that he'll
never lay eyes on you again. I've tried to pacify him; but what can I
do? I wouldn't advise you to--to do a thing against your best interests,
either. You've made a good deal of money, and, like most men, you know
its value. As Aunt Mandy told Joe, in case of your wife's death you'd
get it all--that is, if you kept on the right side of her and indulged
her whims. It seems queer, Alfred, to be standing here in my plain dress
before a man as rich and high up in the world as you are."

"Dixie, listen to me!" Henley tried to take her hand, but she drew it
from his clasp stiffly and stared sharply into his face. "Dixie, you
said, not many days back, that me and you understood one another
perfectly, and that nothing would ever change our feelings. I can't
make out what you are driving at in all this roundabout palaver, but I
know I'm just pine-blank as I was, heart and soul and body. Going over
there made me miserable. I never spent such a day in my life. In all
that red-tape splendor and high doings I wanted my old ways and nothing
else."

"You'll get used to it," the girl said. "Aunt Mandy told Joe, you
remember, that you wouldn't like it at first, like any proud man, but
that the feeling would wear off. She says your wife ain't a bad-looking
woman, and that, in fine clothes and with fine things about her, she
will be different from what she was here. Money is power, Alfred; it
will have its way in this world. A man might sorter _fancy_ he couldn't
get along with a woman on his own level, but let her rise high above
him, and he won't be exactly in the same boat. He'll naturally think
more about her, and, in thinking