Her kindly face somehow comforted him, and the thought of dinner was a welcome one. The ugly tragedy of his life seemed to melt away for the moment, as if it could not stand the light of the setting sun and her wholesome presence. There was an appeal in her eyes that reached him; and somehow he didn’t feel like turning down her naïve, childlike proposition. Besides, he was used to being cared for because he was a soldier, and why not once more now when everything else had gone so rotten? It was an adventure, anyway, and what was there left for him but adventure? he asked himself with a little bitter sneer. But, when she mentioned a _girl_, that was a different thing! Girls were all treacherous. It was a new conviction with him; but it had gone deep, so deep that it had extended not only to a certain girl or class of girls, but to all girls everywhere. He had become a woman-hater. He wanted nothing more to do with any of them. And yet at that moment his tired, disappointed, hurt man’s soul was really crying out for the woman of the universe to comfort him, to explain to him this awful circumstance that had come to all his bright dreams. A mother, that was what he thought he wanted; and Miss Marilla looked as if she might make a nice mother. So he turned like a tired little hungry boy, and followed her, at least until she said “girl.” Then he almost turned and fled. Yet, while Miss Marilla coaxed and explained about Mary Amber, he stood facing again the lovely vision of the girl he had left behind at the beginning of the long, long trail, and whose picture he had just trampled underfoot on this end of the trail, which it now seemed to him would wind on forever alone for him. As he paused on Miss Marilla’s immaculate front steps, he was preparing himself to face the enemy of his life in the form of woman. The one thing really that made him go into that house and meekly submit to be Miss Marilla’s guest was that his soul had risen to battle. He would fight Girl in the concrete! She should be his enemy from henceforth. And this strange, unknown girl, who hated men and thought them conceited and selfish, this cold, inhuman creature, was likely false-hearted too, like the one he had loved and who had not loved him. He would show her what he thought of such girls, of all girls; what all men who knew anything about it thought of all girls! And, thus reasoning, he followed Miss Marilla into the pleasant oilcloth-covered hall, and up the front stairs to the spare room, where she smilingly showed him the towels and brushes prepared for his comfort, and left him, calling cheerily back that dinner would be on the table as soon as he was ready to come down.