“I stand corrected,” answered Kellock mildly. “As for imagination, Medora, you mustn’t think I lack for that. I’ve got my vision, else I shouldn’t have done what I have done, or be going to do what I hope to do; but I grant that while the house is only bricks and mortar to me, like another, it means more to you—a prison and a place of torment.” “Tom-foolery!” said Lydia. “Nobody ever tormented Medora but her own silly self, and if you’d got half the sense you think you’ve got, Jordan Kellock, you’d have found that out long ago. However, you will find it out; and I say it before her, for I’d never say a word behind her back that I’d fear to say to her face. You’ve took her at her own valuation.” “No—no,” he replied, flushing. “I take her at a much higher valuation than her own. I want to put her in a place worthy of her, where she can expand, and be herself, and reveal what she really is. I want for Medora to show the world all that’s hid in her. She doesn’t know herself yet; but I know her, and I’m going to help her to let the world see what she is. And I hope as you’re not for us, at any rate, you won’t be against us, Mrs. Trivett.” “If anybody had told me you’d ever do a thing like this, I wouldn’t have believed them,” she answered. “I’m not going to pretend to you, or Medora either, that I’m on your side. I think you’ve done a very wicked thing, and what beats me, and will always beat me, is how such a man as you could have done it.” “But I don’t think I’ve done a wicked thing, Mrs. Trivett. I only ask you not to judge. It’s no good talking or explaining all the thousand and one points that decided me. I only ask you to give me credit on the strength of my past, and to understand I’m no headstrong, silly creature who dashes at a thing on impulse, regardless of the consequences to the community at large. Nobody can say of me I haven’t got a proper respect for the community.” “It’s her husband you ought to have respected I should think.” “You mustn’t ask that. When I remember the way he treated Medora, I can’t respect Mr. Dingle. Otherwise these things wouldn’t have happened. I admit I love Medora and always did do; but I can honestly say that if Medora had been nothing to me, I should none the less have tried to save her from such a fate, for common good feeling to humanity at large. Being as she was and finding, as she did, that she could love me, of course that simplified it and made it possible for me to put her in the strong and unassailable position of my future wife.” “Stuff and nonsense,” answered Lydia. “You think all this, and I suppose you really believe all this; but you’re blinded by being in love with my daughter. However the mischief’s done now. Only I want you both to understand that you’ll get no sympathy from me—or anybody else.” “We don’t want no sympathy,” declared Medora. “We’ve got each other and we don’t expect a little country place like this to understand.”