As good luck would have it, business was slack at the moment of her arrival, and Thomas left two lanky country-women to the care of his assistant, and followed his sister to a dingy space in the rear which, primarily serving as a store-room, was also by virtue of a certain gloomy privacy, peculiarly adapted to the discussion of a subject of such delicacy. Mrs. Gibson dusted a chair with needless ostentation and then focused her regard on her brother who stood before her a self-confessed culprit, conscious guilt as manifest in his attitude as in the flaming confusion of his face. "Thomas, what's this I hear about Persis Dale?" "I don't know, Nellie. What have you heard?" Mrs. Gibson's glance expressed her scorn of the evasion. "Is it true that Justin Ware is going with her?" "Why, I've heard, Nellie, that he's been over there once or twice. Old friend of Joel's," explained Thomas, with a futile effort to speak convincingly. "Fiddlesticks! If I thought you really believed that any man would walk from the Clematis House out to the Dale place for the sake of hearing Joel Dale talk about the latest cure-all, I'd be ashamed to own you for my brother. If he goes, he goes to see Persis. Now, what do you mean to do about it?" "Nellie, I haven't any right to interfere. If she wants Justin Ware's company it's her own business. She's not beholden to me." "No," snapped Mrs. Gibson. "And why ain't she? Because you've been shilly-shallying along as though 'twas her business to pop the question. You men are getting nowadays so you can't do a thing for yourselves, you just hang back and leave us women to do it all." Thomas squirmed like an impaled beetle. "Guess I'd better go back into the store, Nellie. George means well, but he hasn't much of a head-piece--" "Thomas Hardin, you stay where you are till I'm done with you. Now tell me straight. Have you ever asked Persis Dale to marry you?" "Well, Nellie, to be candid, I never have got really to the point. I want her to know the worst about me first. I wouldn't take her in for all the world, and then have her sorry afterward." "Take her in! Of course, you'll take her in. If all men stopped for that, weddings would have gone out of fashion long ago. And it's well for women's peace of mind that they don't have to know the worst about the men they marry. I'm ashamed of you, Thomas! To think you've got no more gumption than to stand around like a ninny and let that city man walk off with the woman you've always wanted." "If she'd rather marry Justin Ware," Thomas began and failed to finish his sentence, his voice strangled by his inward anguish. His sister snorted. "Good lord! Thomas, a woman's going to marry the man that asks her. By all accounts that Ware won't be mealy-mouthed. If he wants her, he'll not stand back and let another man have the first say." There was a reasonableness in this presentation of the case which impressed Thomas as his air of irresolution showed.