"And remember this, Mr. Jack Graham!" she cried, her repressed anger suddenly blazing out; "I may be young, and I may not know much of the world, but I know enough to take care of myself without any of your help." She picked her way across the stepping-stones and disappeared, without once looking back. XXVI AND HAS TO GO TO WORK From that moment Graham ceased to be an integral factor in the girl's history. His only hold on her imagination had been his moral superiority, and it was now gone. She treated him thenceforth as an admirer whose sincerity deserves the consideration which his insistence makes difficult to give ungrudgingly. He was not discouraged or frowned on. He was forgiven promptly as a child is forgiven. But he was kept always scrupulously to his place. The girl now held the whip hand. After a little, when he became too insistent, she cut him cruelly in punishment and only deigned to smile on him again when, to sue forgiveness, he had quite abandoned his attitude of fault-finding. As for him, the girl's actions soon became hateful. He saw them all wrong, yet he felt his powerlessness to alter them in even the slightest degree. This aroused so powerful but so impotent a rage that shortly he came to react irritably against everything Molly did whether right or wrong. He instinctively arraigned himself in the opposition. He did not want to do this, and his common sense accused him strongly of unreasonableness, but he could not help it. It was greater than he. No matter what the plan, discussion or even conversation, his morbidly sensitive consciousness of the girl's error impelled him to object. "Let's go over to Rockerville to-day," she would suggest. "The horses aren't here." "But it's no great matter to get them. Let's send the Kid." "I don't know where the Kid is." "Well, Frosty then." "Frosty's busy." "It wouldn't hurt you any to get them yourself." "One of the saddles is broken." "You know very well it's only a cinch ring. It can be fixed in five minutes." "We'll---- Don't you think it is going to be pretty hot?" "No, I don't; and if I can stand it, I should think you could." "And----" "Heavens and earth! It's harder than climbing trees to get you to do anything. Never mind! _I_ don't want to go to Rockerville or anywhere else if it's all that trouble!" And then Graham would wonder at his stubborn fit. Why shouldn't they have gone to Rockerville? In five minutes he could have got the horses, fixed the saddle. And the day was beautiful. What real reason did he have? He did not know; only he felt an irresistible impulse to object. This was because he loved her, disapproved of her, and was quite powerless over her.