m of agonized mirth.

"_And so you've come to it at last!_" he managed to articulate.

"Come to what?" inquired Harboro. His level glance was disconcerting.

Peterson was on the defensive immediately. "You used not to care for
women--or you claimed you didn't."

"Oh! I didn't understand. I used not to care for--a certain class of
women. I don't yet."

The threatened boiling-over process was abruptly checked, as if a lid had
been lifted. "Oh!" said Peterson weakly. He gazed at a fragment of roast
beef on his plate. It might have been some sort of strange insect. He
frowned at it. And then his eyes blazed steadily and brightly. He did not
look at Harboro again for a long time.

Sylvia came back, moving a little shyly, and pushing a strand of hair back
into its place. She looked across the dining-room to where the child was
talking with old-fashioned sedateness to her father. She had forgotten her
tragedy--for the moment. The man appeared to have forgotten, too.

But Peterson's dinner turned out to be a failure, after all. Conversation
became desultory, listless.

They arose from their places at last and left the room. On the street they
stood for a moment, but nothing was said about another meeting. Harboro
thought of inviting Peterson over to the house; but he fancied Sylvia
wouldn't like it; and besides, the man's grossness was there, more patent
than ever, and it stood between them.

"Well, good-by," said Peterson. He shook hands with Harboro and with
Sylvia. But while he shook hands with Sylvia he was looking at Harboro.
All that was substantial in the man's nature was educed by men, not by
women; and he was fond of Harboro. To him Sylvia was an incident, while
Harboro was an episode. Harboro typified work and planning and the rebuffs
of the day. Sylvia meant to him only a passing pleasure and the relaxation
of the night or of a holiday.

As he went away he seemed eager to get around a corner somewhere. He
seemed to be swelling up again. You might have supposed he was about to
explode.

CHAPTER VIII

Sylvia's dress made its appearance in due course in the house on the
Quemado Road.

Sylvia could not understand why Harboro should have arranged to have it
delivered according to routine, paying the duty on it. It seemed to her a
waste of money, a willingness to be a victim of extortion. Why should the
fact that the river was there make any difference? It was some scheme of
the merchants of Eagle P