“I wasn't referring direct to Phebe,” he told her. “I meant that between us nobody else matters, no one in the world is of any importance to me but you. It's all I think about. When I was building the house, our house, I hammered you into it with every nail. It is sort of made out of you,” he foundered; “like--like I am.” He could see her relenting in the loss of the rigidity of her pose. Hannah's head drooped and her fingers tapped faintly on the table. He moved closer, urging his advantage. “We're all but married, Hannah; our carpet is being wove and that suite of furniture ordered through Priest. You've been upset by this talk of theaters and such. You'd get tired of them and that fly-by-night life in a month.” “Phebe hasn't.” “What suits one doesn't suit all,” he said concisely. “It would suit more girls than you know for,” she informed him. “Take it round here, there's nothing to do but get married, and all the change is from one kitchen to another. You don't even have a way to match up fellows. Soon as you're out of short skirts one of them visits with you and the rest stay away like you had the smallpox. Our courting lasted a week and you were here four times.” “We haven't much time, Hannah,” he reminded her. “It was right hard for me to see you that often. There was a smart of things you were doing, too.” “The more fool!” she exclaimed. Again his resentment promised to leap beyond control. He clenched his hands and stared with contracted eyes at the floor. “Well,” he articulated finally, “we're promised anyhow; that can't be denied. I have your word.” “Yes,” she admitted, “but chance that I went with Phebe doesn't mean I'd never come back.” “It would mean that you'd never come back,” he paraphrased her. “Maybe I would know better,” she answered quickly. “I'm sorry, Calvin. I didn't go to be so sharp. Only I don't know what's right,” she went on unhappily. “It isn't what's right,” he corrected her, “but what you want. I wish Phebe had stayed away a little longer.” “There you go again at Phebe!” she protested. He replied grimly; “Not half what I feel.” In a dangerously calm voice she inquired, “What's the rest then?” “She's a trouble-maker,” he asserted in a shaking tone over which he seemed to have no command; “she came back to Greenstream and for no reason but her own slinked into our happiness. Your whole family--even Hosmer, pretending to be so wise--are blind as bats. You can't even see that Phebe's hair is as dyed as her stories. She says she is on the stage, but it's a pretty stage! I've been to Stanwick and seen those Parisian Dainties and burlesque shows. They're nothing but a lot of half-naked women cavorting and singing fast songs. And the show only begins--with most of them--when the curtain drops. If I even try to think of you in that I get sick.” “Go on,” Hannah stammered, scarcely above her breath.