I began to feel as if I were once more a small boy receiving a lecture from the governess. “I am not at all afraid of them, Miss Colton,” I protested. “You are. Why? Your conscience is clear, isn't it? You don't intend selling out to my father?” “Certainly not.” “Then why should you care what people like that may think? Oh, you weary me! I admired you for your independence. There are few persons with the courage to face my father as you have done and I admired you for it. I would not have had you sell us the land for ANYTHING.” “You would not?” I gasped. “Certainly not! I have been on your side all the time. If you had sold I should have thought you, like all the rest, holding back merely for a higher price. I respected you for the fight you were making. You must have known it. If I had not why do you suppose I gave you that hint about the Development Company?” “Goodness knows!” I exclaimed, devoutly. “And I was sure you could not be bribed by an offer of a position in Father's office. It was not really a bribe--Father has, for some unexplainable reason, taken a fancy to you--but I knew you would believe it to be bribery. That is why I was so positive in telling him that you would not accept. And now you--oh, when I think of how I have LOWERED myself! How I have stooped to . . . But there! I am sure that supper of yours must be waiting. Pray condescend to convey my regrets to the faithful--what is her name? Odd that I should forget a name like THAT. Oh, yes! Dorinda!--Pray convey my regrets to the faithful Dorinda for being unwittingly the cause of the delay, and assure her that the offense will NOT be repeated. Good-by, Mr. Paine.” She walked off, between the granite posts and along the curved drive. This time I made no attempt to call her back. The storm had burst so unexpectedly and had developed into such a hurricane that I had had time to do little more than bend my head before it. But I had had time enough to grow angry. I would not have called her back then for the world. She had insulted me, not once only, but again and again. I stood and watched her go on her way, and then I turned and went on my own. The parting had come. The acquaintance was broken off; not precisely as I had intended it to be broken, but broken, nevertheless, and ended for good and all. I was glad of it. There would be no more fishing excursions, no more gifts of flowers and books, no more charity calls. The “common fellow” was free from the disturbing influence and he was glad of it--heartily glad of it. Yet his gladness was not as apparent to others as it should, by all that was consistent, have been. Lute, evidently, observed no traces of transcendent happiness, when I encountered him in the back yard, beside the woodpile, sharpening the kindling hatchet with a whetstone, a process peculiarly satisfying to his temperament because it took such a long time to achieve a noticeable result. “Hello, Ros!” he hailed. “Why! what ails you?”