"Well, if he didn't he's a grand fibber," replied Kathleen. "But he did. You can't fool me. I thought I'd never get him back to the house." Then, as she tripped up the porch steps, she shook a finger at Dorn. "Remember!" "I'll never forget," said Dorn, and he was as earnest as he was amiable. Then, as she disappeared, he exclaimed to Lenore, "What an adorable little girl!" "Do you like Kathleen?" "Like her!" Dorn laughed in a way to make light of such words. "My life has been empty. I see that." "Come, we'll go out to the wheat-fields," said Lenore. "What do you think of 'Many Waters'? This is harvest-time. You see 'Many Waters' at its very best." "I can hardly tell you," he replied. "All my life I've lived on my barren hills. I seem to have come to another world. 'Many Waters' is such a ranch as I never dreamed of. The orchards, the fruit, the gardens--and everywhere running water! It all smells so fresh and sweet. And then the green and red and purple against that background of blazing gold!... 'Many Waters' is verdant and fruitful. The Bend is desert." "Now that you've been here, do you like it better than your barren hills?" asked Lenore. Kurt hesitated. "I don't know," he answered, slowly. "But maybe that desert I've lived in accounts for much I lack." "Would you like to stay at 'Many Waters'--if you weren't going to war?" "I might prefer 'Many Waters' to any place on earth. It's a paradise. But I would not chose to stay here." "Why? When you return--you know--my father will need you here. And if anything should happen to him I will have to run the ranch. Then _I_ would need you." Dorn stopped in his tracks and gazed at her as if there were slight misgivings in his mind. "Lenore, if you owned this ranch would you want me--_me_ for your manager?" he asked, bluntly. "Yes," she replied. "You would? Knowing I was in love with you?" "Well, I had forgotten that," she replied, with a little laugh. "It would be rather embarrassing--and funny, wouldn't it?" "Yes, it would," he said, grimly, and walked on again. He made a gesture of keen discomfiture. "I knew you hadn't taken me seriously." "I believed you, but I could not take you _very_ seriously," she murmured. "Why not?" he demanded, as if stung, and his eyes flashed on her. "Because your declaration was not accompanied by the usual--question--that a girl naturally expects under such circumstances." "Good Heaven! You say that?... Lenore Anderson, you think me insincere because I did not ask you to marry me," he asserted, with bitter pathos. "No. I merely said you were not--_very_ serious," she replied. It was fascination to torment him this way, yet it hurt her, too. She was playing on the verge of a precipice, not afraid of a misstep, but glorying in the prospect of a leap into the abyss. Something deep and strange in her bade her make him show her how much he loved her. If she drove him to desperation she would reward him.