Again he was uneasy. Apparently the uncomfortable topic was not entirely buried yet. It might rise up exhumed, in its shroud, any moment. "Yes," he said. "I'm used to that sort of thing--managin' niggers. Had 'em doin' most every sort of rough work in my time, diggin' ditches, mendin' roads, cuttin' fence posts--all that sort of thing. Guess it's about all I'm fit for." The effort died lugubriously and he sat, waiting. He hated personal confidences and there hung a most particularly uncomfortable one in the offing. The silence was like a living thing. It crushed down upon the summerhouse with huge, downy black wings. A very faint rustling started up in the dry leaves of the creeper on the roof and clammy little draughts of air came twisting through the cracks. All the languorous glamour of the night had passed. It was merely autumn moonlight, and too late in the year to be sitting out in a summerhouse mouthing inconsequentialities--two people who were old enough to know better. Joe stirred restlessly. Surely she must be convinced that he meant to be friendly. He leaned back and looked up at the sky. "What do you mean to do, Joe?" Mary Louise began again. "Huh?" He recovered with a start. "Oh, I don't know. Think sometimes I will come back and try my hand at farmin'. Think maybe I'll be more of a real person doing that than anything else I know. But this road business is a necessary thing. Bloomfield needs a good road--all the way into the city. Something to put her on the map. Maybe with a good road we can get somewhere." Speaking out the idea seemed to crystallize it. He began to enthuse a little over it inwardly. "Mightn't be so bad. Might buy back the old place even, some day. Jenkins is not makin' too much speed with it, I hear." Mary Louise leaned forward toward him. "Oh, Joe, I wish you would," she said. "I've been thinking a lot here lately and it seems to me it's just as essential for real men to settle and live in places like Bloomfield as anywhere else. Big people should spread their influence. Why should they all cluster in little knots and bunches like the cities? I think there's a better chance to grow--here. I really do." She turned away and sat with her chin on her hands, her face averted. Joe, carried momentarily away with the thought, did not notice her agitation; moreover, it was quite dark in the summerhouse, with only odds and ends of moonlight slipping through the roof. And he did not answer her, but sat thinking. "I'm going to," she continued after a bit, her voice sounding somewhat broken and muffled against her open hand. "Goin' to what?" "Going to stay here and see what I can make out of it."