claimed in a
crestfallen tone. "I see--I see--_he's_ going."

"Yes. He is Sally's first cousin."

The uncouth mason sat silent. He folded his ponderous hands and scowled
as he did when displeased with the work of a bungling assistant. Tilly
was covertly and studiously regarding his profile.

"Why do you say it like that?" she inquired. "Is there anything strange
about Joel going to a party?"

"Strange? Not if he knows you are to be there. Does he?"

"I suppose he _does_ think I may be there, but what of it--what of it?"

John turned and stared toward the house. It was as if he were trying to
keep her from seeing the fierce expression he knew had clutched his
face. Tilly leaned closer to him. Her shoulder touched his. She sat
waiting for him to turn his head toward her again. Presently he looked
at her, his honest eyes holding a famished expression.

"What is there strange about Joel going?" she asked, softly and all but
propitiatingly.

"Nothing strange about it--just the reverse," he sighed. "I've heard
that he has been loving you ever since he was a little boy, and that he
comes to see you every chance he gets. I've heard that your father
doesn't like him. I see--his cousin has got this party up so you and he
can--"

Tilly sprang to her feet. John kept his seat, unaware that even rural
courtesy demanded that he rise when she did. But Tilly was no stickler
for conventions. She was a working-girl; he was a laborer, and there was
something to be fathomed in the man before her which lurked deep within
him. She was angry, or perhaps only impatient, but the mood passed as if
melting into the moonlight which laved her dainty form like some
supernal fluid.

"What you said is not kind or just," she objected, sweetly. "You
intimate that I'd meet Joel somewhere against my father's wishes. I
would not do so. I would not disobey my father or do anything on the sly
that he would oppose."

In dumb, almost stupid alarm John sat staring up at her. He quaked under
the sudden realization that he had offended her, and yet he had never
apologized to any one in his life. The fine sense of that sort of
restitution belonged to social paths John Trott had never traversed.
"Excuse me," he might have said, as he had said at the gate, but somehow
under her bent gaze he found himself unable to utter a word. It may have
been the sheer blank look in his eyes, or the helpless twitching of his
lips, that decided her, for she suddenly sa