“I told him it wasn’t any business of mine. That’s why I let him come. If it was _my_ business, I’d have you shut up in a big place with walls all around it; an’ kittens an’ canary birds an’ all sorts of fluffy things for you to play with. An’ no man but me should ever come within a hundred miles of you. Then there’d be no danger of your runnin’ off an’ gettin’ married to some geezer who’d teach you to think I was the sort of man that ought to be fed in the kitchen an’ never ’lowed in the parlor. Oh, I know.” The girl was looking at him with big, inscrutable eyes, as he halted half-ashamed of his own words. “I think,” she said slowly, after a little pause, “I think you must have inherited a great, _great_ deal of ignorance, Caleb. For during the years while you were a baby, you were too young to acquire _very_ much of it. And you _couldn’t_ have acquired all your present stock in the thirty short years since that time. Besides, I don’t think even Nature can make a man _quite_ foolish unless he helps her a little.” “It sounds fine,” admitted Caleb, “But what does it mean? What break have I made now? If it was foolish to want you all to myself, always--” “It wasn’t,” she interrupted, “And you ought to know it wasn’t. It--” “Then what?” “Mr. Caine,” said the girl, “told me once you were the cleverest man he knew. It made me very happy at the time. And I was nice to him all the rest of the afternoon. But I see now it only showed how few sensible men he knew. Let’s talk about something else.” “But--hold on!” begged Caleb. “Honest, Dey, you ought to think twice before turnin’ down a chap like young Hawarden. His fam’ly--” “I told you last week never to talk that way again,” said Desirée, with a stifled break in her voice, “_Why_ do you try to make me unhappy?” “_Me?_” gurgled Caleb in an utter bewilderment of distress. “Why, little girl, I’d cut my head off for you. Please don’t get sore on me. I’m no sort of a feller to talk to a girl like you. I’m always sayin’ the wrong thing without even knowin’ afterward just what it was that hurt you. An’ then I wish I had a third foot, so’s I could kick myself. It’s queer that Nature built men so that they couldn’t kick themselves or pat themselves on the back. _Please_ be friends again. I--I wish there was some tea here I could drink, just to show you how sorry I am!” The girl’s mood had changed. She laughed with such heartiness at his penitential attitude that he all at once felt full forgiveness was granted. If there was a forced note in her gaiety, his duller senses did not perceive it.