"I reckon you can't know what real love is unless you have hated, ma'am. Some folks say they get through life without hatin' anybody, but if you'll look around an' watch them, you'll find they're mostly an unfeelin' kind. You ain't one of them kind, ma'am. I've watched you, an' I've seen that you've got a heap of spirit. Some of these days you're goin' to wake up. An' when you do, you'll find out what love is." "Don't you think I love Mr. Masten?" she said, looking at him unwaveringly. He looked as fairly back at her. "I don't reckon you do, ma'am. Mebbe you think so, but you don't." "What makes you think so?" she demanded, defiantly. "Why, the way you look at him, ma'am. If I was engaged to a girl an' she looked at me as critical as you look at him, sometimes, I'd sure feel certain that I'd drawed the wrong card." Still her eyes did not waver. She began to sense his object in introducing this subject, and she was determined to make him feel that his conclusions were incorrect--as she knew they were. "That is an example of your wonderful power of observation," she said, "the kind you were telling me about, which makes you able to make such remarkable deductions. But if you are no more correct in the others than you are in trying to determine the state of my feelings toward Mr. Masten, you are entirely wrong. I _do_ love Mr. Masten!" She spoke vehemently, for she thought herself very much in earnest. But he grinned. "You're true blue," he said, "an' you've got the grit to tell where you stand. But you're mistaken. You couldn't love Masten." "Why?" she said, so intensely curious that she entirely forgot to think of his impertinence in talking thus to her. "Why can't I love Mr. Masten?" He laughed, and reddened. "Because you're goin' to love me, ma'am," he said, gently. She would have laughed if she had not felt so indignant. She would have struck him as she had struck Chavis had she not been positive that behind his words was the utmost respect--that he did not intend to be impertinent--that he seemed as natural as he had been all along. She would have exhibited scorn if she could have summoned it. She did nothing but stare at him in genuine amazement. She was going to be severe with him, but the mild humor of his smile brought confusion upon her. "You don't lack conceit, whatever your other shortcomings," she managed, her face rosy. "Well now, I'm thankin' you, ma'am, for lettin' me off so easy," he said. "I was expectin' you'd be pretty hard on me for talkin' that way. I've been wonderin' what made me say it. I expect it's because I've been thinkin' it so strong. Anyway, it's said, an' I can't take it back. I wouldn't want to, for I was bound to tell you some time, anyway. I reckon it ain't conceit that made me say it. I've liked you a heap ever since I got hold of your picture." "So that is where the picture went!" she said. "I have been hunting high and low for it. Who gave it to you?"