“I’ve never touched your hair since that day, have I? I’ve never touched you. Not because I didn’t want to. Not because I didn’t crave to, and hunger to, and thirst to, honing for you, every hour of the day, every hour of the night!” He slipped back into the picturesqueness of his mountain diction; even his accent reverted. He might have been, in that moment, the boy who leaped into the shaft of setting sunlight with his feud rifle in his hands. “But I promised your father to wait, and I’ve waited. But you are nineteen, and I am superintendent of the Altonia Mill”--it was almost like a chant of triumph--“and I’ll wait no longer! I have been aiming for this, just as I’ve been aiming for the mill, ever since--” Fingers of steel under her chin, lifting it, forcing her face upward. “I’ll wait no longer!” CHAPTER VIII _Miss Ada Tenafee rejoices to have her protégée receive two callers in one afternoon, and Miss Nancy Carey sees Luke Manders again._ IT was with a sense of sanctuary, of what children call “King’s X,” that Glen gained the backyard of her home, Luke striding beside her, and found the black woman gathering up the towels which had been bleaching on the grass. “Hi, dar, Miss Glen, honey, yo’ procative right in de house!” Phemie greeted her with a husky shout. “Yo’ all got comp’ny! Miss Ada, she lookin’ fo’ you ebery minnit!” Company? Little company came to the dull house of the doctor’s choosing. Some connection of her companion’s, no doubt.... At the steps of the rear porch Glen stood still and faced him. “Luke, I’m so sorry! Sorry and--ashamed! I don’t know what to say to you.” “There’s only one thing to say to me,” he said, doggedly, his face dark. “That you’ll marry me, as you’ve always meant to! As you promised your father! What’s come over you, to make you----” “Oh, Luke, I don’t know, myself!” the girl broke in, desperately. “I’m so proud of you, and so devoted to you, and Dad----” He took imperious hold of her again without a backward glance at the negress, pottering about the mean little backyard. “It’s no use talking and explaining!” he said roughly. “For five years I’ve waited, and----” With a scared glance at the house and another at Phemie, still stooping over her towels which flapped teasingly in the wind, Glen pulled herself free. “Oh, then you can--you _will_--wait a little longer, Luke! Why”--she caught at a straw of defense--“you’re always telling me to wait about the mill, and the children, and all the hands, and making me be patient! Now I’m begging you to wait--to be patient with me, just a little while, Luke!” “How long?” “Why--why--how can I tell, how long, exactly? Until I--until-- You see, Luke, I can’t explain, but I’m not ready! Dad wanted me to wait, and----” “Till you were nineteen or twenty, he said. Well, you’re nineteen.” “I know. Oh, I know how silly and--and disloyal I seem, but if you’ll just _trust_ me!”