"Be damned if I think I’ve got patience for it, Madge. I love her well enough but I can’t bide like a lizard or a spider watching a fly. I lost you along of taking it too easy--yes, I did, for I swear you’d have married me if I’d offered myself a year before David came along. And now, perhaps, I’ll end by losing Rhoda. There’s nobody else in the field and she’s got no excuse for not taking me; and that’s just what will make her hard to catch. But I’m determined in reason to have her. Only I’m not built to wait till we’re both grey-headed." "Let me begin to help," she said. "You bade me do nought so far, and I’ve done nought. Not by a word or wish have I let her guess I thought about you or about her. She don’t know that I’m interested yet. And I won’t let her know; but I can set to work witty and say the word in season and help the good cause on. Why not? I want to see her married just as much as I want to see you married. ’Twould mend you both--yes, you so well as her." "That wise you’ve grown since you took David! Though, for that matter, you was always wise enough for any two girls." "Not a bit wise--wish I was; far from that, worse luck; but sensible how things are and sensible how difficult ’tis to get two natures to fit in sometimes. I be sure as possible that you and she would make a happy couple and that you’ll never regret it if she takes you, and no more will she; but the difficulty is to see where your natures be built to fit together. ’Tis like a child’s puzzle: to fit you and her close." "There’s not much we’ve got in common except love of roaming by night." "A pretty useful taste in common for lovers, I should think. But I’ll find more out than that. I know a lot more about her now than once I did; and I’ll tell you this: I’m not so much in secret fear of her as once I was. Yes--fearful I felt at first--so off-handed and stern and aloof she was. But now I’ve come to see she’s terrible simple really, and not very different from other girls--except here and there. She’s interested in all that falls out, and she’s hopeful to-day and cast down to-morrow like anybody else. She sits of a night thinking--yes, she thinks. Lord knows what about, but ’tis a sign of a heart in her that she can pucker up her forehead thinking. Kind, mind you, too. Not partickler kind to me, or interested in me away from David--I must grant that. But kind to living things in general." "But I don’t want her to be kind--to anybody but me. I want her to be grand and odd and unlike t’others. ’Tis her oddness as much as her loveliness took my fancy; but if her oddness ends in her being an old maid, that’ll mean a good deal of my time wasted." "Don’t think it. A rare good wife’s hid in Rhoda, and, please God, you’ll be the man to find it out. I’ll set to work, Bartley. Don’t fear I’ll be clumsy. Too fond of you both for that. We’ll meet again in a month, if you can wait so long--" "Which I certainly can not."