The Parian head of Minerva on the bookcase above her did not offer the spectator a face less free from maidenly confusion than Clementina's at that moment. Her father had certainly expected none, but he was not prepared for the perfect coolness of her reply. “Do you mean, have I ACCEPTED him?” “No,--well--yes.” “No, then! Is that what he wished to see you about? It was understood that he was not to allude again to the subject to any one.” “He has not to ME. It was only my own idea. He had something very different to tell me. You may not know, Clementina,” he begun cautiously, “that I have been lately the subject of some anonymous slanders, and Grant has taken the trouble to track them down for me. It is a calumny that goes back as far as Sidon, and I may want your level head and good memory to help me to refute it.” He then repeated calmly and clearly, with no trace of the fury that had raged within him a moment before, the substance of Grant's revelation. The young girl listened without apparent emotion. When he had finished she said quickly: “And what do you want me to recollect?” The hardest part of Harcourt's task was coming. “Well, don't you remember that I told you the day the surveyors went away--that--I had bought this land of 'Lige Curtis some time before?” “Yes, I remember your saying so, but”-- “But what?” “I thought you only meant that to satisfy mother.” Daniel Harcourt felt the blood settling round his heart, but he was constrained by an irresistible impulse to know the worst. “Well, what did YOU think it really was?” “I only thought that 'Lige Curtis had simply let you have it, that's all.” Harcourt breathed again. “But what for? Why should he?” “Well--ON MY ACCOUNT.” “On YOUR account! What in Heaven's name had YOU to do with it?” “He loved me.” There was not the slightest trace of vanity, self-consciousness or coquetry in her quiet, fateful face, and for this very reason Harcourt knew that she was speaking the truth. “Loved YOU!--you, Clementina!--my daughter! Did he ever TELL you so?” “Not in words. He used to walk up and down on the road when I was at the back window or in the garden, and often hung about the bank of the creek for hours, like some animal. I don't think the others saw him, and when they did they thought it was Parmlee for Euphemia. Even Euphemia thought so too, and that was why she was so conceited and hard to Parmlee towards the end. She thought it was Parmlee that night when Grant and Rice came; but it was 'Lige Curtis who had been watching the window lights in the rain, and who must have gone off at last to speak to you in the store. I always let Phemie believe that it was Parmlee,--it seemed to please her.”