She made herself as beautiful as possible and she was perfectly controlled when Jemima called her that evening. She found that on account of the humidity, or possibly in order that he might speak with her alone, Junior had taken a chair on the front veranda. When she went to him, she saw that he had brought her a huge bouquet of delicate flowers and an extravagantly large box of candy. All day the house had been sickening with the damp odour of the dozens of bouquets crowded everywhere. The piano was still loaded with pounds of candy that she must speedily give away or see it wasted in the heat. The very sight of the flowers faintly sickened her. She dropped them on the porch table and left Junior to relieve himself of the candy. Then she sat on a long bench running the length of the porch, sheltered by vines. Junior came over and seated himself beside her. His first words were extremely unfortunate for he asked: “What has aroused the temper of my fair lady?” Mahala felt that “temper” was not the correct word to describe the state of mind which Junior must know possessed her. Certainly she resented the assumption that she belonged to him. A sneer flashed across her face. At sight of it Junior lost his head. He threw his arms around her and tried again to kiss her. She roughly repulsed him, and there flew from her lips words she was sorry for the moment she had said them. “Junior Moreland, if you had any sense, you would leave me alone! I know a girl who is crazy about you. Why don’t you pay your attentions to her?” Then Junior was possessed with anger. He had been encouraged by both his father and his mother to believe that he really had some rights where Mahala was concerned. In a voice tense with emotion, he said to her: “Ever since you’ve known anything, you’ve known that I intended to marry you when we grew up, and you’ve always been nice and friendly with me. What is the matter with you now?” Mahala drew back. She waited until she could speak smoothly, and then she said deliberately: “I don’t see how you can hold me responsible for what you’ve intended. If your father and mother were not stone blind with pride and conceit, they would know, and you would know, what this whole town thinks about the Morelands.” Angered further by this, Junior retorted: “And what’s the whole town going to think when it finds out that the Spellmans will be in the poorhouse if my father chooses to foreclose the mortgages and demand payments on the notes that he holds on everything you’ve got on earth?” In his anger and excitement, he had forgotten even to lower his voice. Inside the window, Mahlon Spellman, roused by his tones and the import of what he was saying, struggled to his feet and stood listening, one hand on a chair back steadying him, the other clutching his heart.