She stepped into the great embrasure of the bay window and sat down on the green-covered walnut-wood chair--just as she had sat down on the first day. Her eyes looked straight ahead, not at ripe grain, but at the burning purple of furrowed earth. Jethro touched her idle hand with the privileged tenderness of an accepted lover. “You are a slipped thing,” he said fondly. “Slipped?” “Slender, then. I always fancied a woman with a trim, hard waist like yours. But I came to talk business.” He held out the roughly torn bit of newspaper. “Tear it up,” she said thickly. Her head hung on her bosom and her eyes fell until the lashes rested on her flaming skin. “Not yet.” She put out her hand to snatch it from him, with the wicked, stealthy air of a cat after a bird. Until that shameful bit of paper was destroyed her womanhood was vulgarized. “Give it me,” she besought humbly. He laid it in her open hand and she tore it into minute bits, opened the casement, and cast it out. The wind caught it, carried it, and shed it like snowflakes over the ridged furrows. “We needn’t wait long for the wedding,” he said, as she latched the casement and came back to the green chair. It pleased him to watch her changing face, now pink like Nancy’s, now white like the hidden skin on his own arms and chest. “When you like,” she returned docilely--thinking it would be better to settle soon. “And I’ve drawn you a check--a year’s salary and a year more instead of notice,” he continued, twisting up his face into cunning wrinkles with satisfaction at his own artifice. “Take Aunt Sophy with you into Liddleshorn and buy clothes.” She took the strip of paper, her eyes dilating at the magnificence of the amount. “You are a great deal too good to me.” “When we are married,” he went on, pressing her hand jovially, “I’ll make any alterations about the place you like. But the carriage drive must wait till winter--hedging and ditching time; labor’s cheap then. How about inside?” “I should like a bath-room.” “You shall have it. And nurseries.” His voice was perfectly matter-of-fact. “The two sunny rooms up top will do. I’ll have bars to the windows; it’s as well to be ready.” “Not too ready,” she said faintly, hardly knowing whether to retreat or to laugh. “A son,” Jethro said dreamily, “to come beating with me when shooting’s on. They soon grow up. He shall have a little horse and ride to hounds. We say in these parts about a woman’s children: “If ye’ve got one, ye can run. If ye’ve got two, ye can goo. But if ye’ve got three ye must bide where ye be.” She got up nervously, not knowing whether he would be betrayed into rustic sayings yet more suggestive. “I’d like to go to Liddleshorn to-morrow,” she said, folding the check in her purse. “There will be time before dinner to run over to Turle and see if Aunt Sophy can come with me--if you wish it.” “She’s a splendid manager.”