“You sweet on her, son?” “I like her. How’s she been acting?” Bernamer pulled his belt tight and lifted his hard face toward the sky. Gurdy felt the mute courtesy of his pause. The man had a natural scorn of tumult. He lived silently and, perhaps, thought much. He said, “This is just as much Mark’s place as it is ours. He’s the best feller livin’. We all know that. And she’s Joe’s daughter.” Something boiled up in his blue eyes. He cried, “What in hell! You’re as good as she is, ain’t you? You can come home and act like we wasn’t mud underfoot! Who the hell’s she?” His wrath slid into laughter. He pulled his belt tighter and winked at Gurdy. “It’s kind of funny hearin’ her cuss, though.” “She over does that, a little. Just what’s the trouble, dad?” “I can’t tell you, son. She’s sand in the cream. It ain’t her smokin’. I miss my guess if the girls ain’t tried that.--She kind of puts me in mind of that Boyle wench Mark married. She’s got the old man all worried. Your mamma’s scared to death of her. So’s the girls.--She ain’t so damned polite it hurts her any.... Say, I wouldn’t hurt Mark’s feelings for the world--And I notice she don’t carry on so high and mighty when Mark’s here, neither.--Ain’t there some place else she could go?” Gurdy had a second of futile rage that divided itself between Margot and his family. This wasn’t within remedy. She had absorbed the attitudes, the impatience of worlds exterior to the flat peace of the farm. He grinned at his father. “Yes. I’m going to take her off. Mark’s got more sense than you think, dad.” “Sure. Mark’s got plenty of sense when he ain’t dead cracked over a thing. Don’t tell him I’ve been squalling. Mebbe that Englishwoman spoiled her, lettin’ her gallivant too much. Mebbe it’s her father comin’ out in her. Between us, Joe was tougher’n most boys. You’ll likely find her down in the orchard smokin’ her head off. It’s all kind of funny ... and then it ain’t.” She wasn’t smoking. She sat with a novel spread on her yellow lap and the bole of an apple tree behind her head. There was a shattered plate of ruddy glow about her. The pose had the prettiness of a drowsy child. She was, her lover thought, a bragging child, lonesome for cleverness, annoyed by stolidity. In the vast green of the orchard she seemed small. He whistled. She rose, her hair for a moment floating, then laughed and threw the book away. “Thank God, that’s you! I thought it was one of--O, any one!” There was a shrill, unknown jerk in her voice. She came running and took his arm. “Tell me something about civilization--quick! You don’t want to talk about the fil-lums do you? Or whether Jane Rupp’s going to marry that Coe feller or--” “Bored?” “Oh--to death! How do you stand it? How do you stand it?... I knew they’d be common but I didn’t think they’d be such bloody--” “Look out,” said Gurdy.