Elder Conklin | Page 4

reaching the house, however,
she offered her lips before getting out of the buggy. When alone in his
bedroom, Bancroft sat and thought. The events of the evening had been
annoying. Miss Loo's conduct had displeased him; he did not like
familiarity. He would not acknowledge to himself that he was jealous.
The persistent way Stevens had tried to puzzle her had disgusted
him--that was all. It was sufficiently plain that in the past she had
encouraged Stevens. Her freedom and boldness grated upon his nerves.
He condemned her with a sense of outraged delicacy. Girls ought not to

make advances; she had no business to ask him whether he liked her;
she should have waited for him to speak plainly. He only required what
was right. Yet the consciousness that she loved him flattered his vanity
and made him more tolerant; he resolved to follow her lead or to
improve upon it. Why shouldn't he? She had said "every girl expects to
be kissed." And if she wanted to be kissed, it was the least he could do
to humour her.
All the while, at the bottom of his heart there was bitterness. He would
have given much to believe that an exquisite soul animated that lovely
face. Perhaps she was better than she seemed. He tried to smother his
distrust of her, till it was rendered more acute by another reflection--she
had got him into the quarrel with Seth Stevens. He did not trouble
much about it. He was confident enough of his strength and the
advantages of his boyish training in the gymnasium to regard the trial
with equanimity. Still, the girls he had known in the East would never
have set two men to fight, never--it was not womanly. Good girls were
by nature peacemakers. There must be something in Loo, he argued,
almost--vulgar, and he shrank from the word. To lessen the sting of his
disappointment, he pictured her to himself and strove to forget her
faults.
On the following morning he went to his school very early. The girls
were not as obtrusive as they had been. Miss Jessie Stevens did not
bother him by coming up every five minutes to see what he thought of
her dictation, as she had been wont to do. He was rather glad of this; it
saved him importunate glances and words, and the propinquity of
girlish forms, which had been more trying still. But what was the cause
of the change? It was evident that the girls regarded him as belonging
to Miss Conklin. He disliked the assumption; his caution took alarm; he
would be more careful in future. The forenoon melted into afternoon
quietly, though there were traces on Jake Conklin's bench of unusual
agitation and excitement. To these signs the schoolmaster paid small
heed at the moment. He was absorbed in thinking of the evening before,
and in trying to appraise each of Loo's words and looks. At last the time
came for breaking up. When he went outside to get into the buggy--he
had brought Jack with him--he noticed, without paying much attention

to it, that Jake Conklin was not there to unhitch the strap and in various
other ways to give proof of a desire to ride with him. He set off for
Richards' mill, whither, needless to say, Jake and half-a-dozen other
urchins had preceded him as fast as their legs could carry them.
As soon as he was by himself the schoolmaster recognized that the
affair was known to his scholars, and the knowledge nettled him. His
anger fastened upon Loo. It was all her fault; her determination to "pay
Stevens out" had occasioned the quarrel.
Well, he would fight and win, and then have done with the girl whose
lips had doubtless been given to Stevens as often and as readily as to
himself. The thought put him in a rage, while the idea of meeting
Stevens on an equality humiliated him--strife with such a boor was in
itself a degradation. And Loo had brought it about. He could never
forgive her. The whole affair was disgraceful, and her words, "Every
girl expects to be kissed when she goes out with a man," were vulgar
and coarse! With which conclusion in his mind he turned to the right
round the section-line, and saw the mill before him.
After the return from the house-warming, and the understanding, as she
considered it, with Bancroft, Miss Loo gave herself up to her new-born
happiness. As she lay in bed her first thought was of her lover: he was
"splendid," whereby she meant pleasant and attractive. She wondered
remorsefully how she had taken him to be quite "homely-looking"
when she first saw him. Why, he was altogether above any one she
knew--not perhaps jest in looks,