"I don’t like the way it’s turned out a bit," she said. "The Chester stock can’t stand being balked in anything; they couldn’t bear to be beat in love by a poor, self-made man like Luke, and great, big trouble may be brewing. Langdon might push a row on him. Luke is writing all sorts of things against the evil of war and fighting and the like, but under pressure he’d resent an insult. I’d hate to see him plumb mad. Then, again, Langdon might sink low enough to actually throw that imprudence of yours at him. If he did, that would be a match to powder. If Luke was a preacher and stood in the pulpit calling up mourners, he’d step down and act on that sort of an invitation. Virginia, if ever a man loved a woman, he loves you. His love is one of the exceptions to the rule I was talking about just now, and it seems to me that, no matter how you treat a man like that other scamp, you won’t have a right to refuse Luke King. The truth is, I’m afraid he never could stand it. He’s set his great, big, gentle soul on having you for his helpmeet, and I don’t believe you will let any silly notion ruin it all. He’s got brain enough to tackle the biggest human problems and settle them, but he’ll never give his heart out but once." Virginia withdrew her hand and swept it across her face, as if to brush away the flush upon it. "I can never be his wife," she faltered. She paused, turned her face away, and said, in a low tone: "I am not good enough. I deliberately flirted with Langdon Chester. I used to love to have him say sweet things to me, and I led him on. I’ve no excuse to make. If I had been good enough to be the wife of a man like Luke King, I’d never have been caught in that trap, even to save my mother, for if I’d acted differently he’d never have done what he did. It’s all my fault. If Langdon Chester is upset and bent on trouble, I’m the cause of it. If it results in unhappiness to the—to the noblest and best man I ever knew, it will all be my fault. You needn’t try to comfort me, Mrs. Boyd. I tell you I’d rather die than have Luke King know all that has happened, and God knows I’d never be his wife otherwise. So that is the end of it." Ann was silent for several minutes, then she said: "I feel like you are wrong somehow, and yet I don’t exactly know how to make you see it my way. We must both study over it. It’s a problem, and no little one. There is one thing certain: I’ll never advise you to start married life on deception of any kind. I tried that, with the best intentions, and it was the worst investment I ever made." XXXIV During this conversation Sam Hemingway had returned to the house from his field. He had an armful of white, silky, inside leaves of cornhusks closely packed together, and these he submerged in a washtub full of water, in the back-yard, placing stones on them to hold them down. "What are you about now?" his sister-in-law asked, as she appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.