he
said I was real good. Said Israel was going to kill soon."

"Kill?"

"Hogs. There were two. They'd weigh three hundred apiece. It was quite a
busy season, trying out and all, and no time for her to be away."

It was irresistible. They both laughed. They had been dowering her with
the grace of Helen, and now she stood before them inexorably bent on
trying out.

"I gather," said Nan, rather drily, "you're going over to see her
yourself."

"Yes," said Raven. "But not till I've seen you. You ran away from Milly.
Now Milly's gone, and you're coming back."

Her eyes roved from him to the steadfast green of the slope across the
road. She was moved. Her mouth twitched at the tight corners, her eyes
kindled.

"It would be fun," said she.

"Besides, think how silly to keep Charlotte provisioning you and tugging
over to spend nights, poor Charlotte!"

"I really stayed," said Nan, temporizing, "for this Tira of yours--and
Tenney's."

This form of statement sounded malicious to her own ears, but not to
his. Sometimes Nan wished he were not quite so "simple honest." It was,
she suspected, the woman's part--her own--to be unsuspecting and
obstinately good.

"But if," she continued, "she won't have anything to do with you, I
might as well go back to town."

"Not yet," said Raven. "I've got something to tell you."

"What's it about?"

"Old Crow."

Nan thought a minute.

"All right," she said. She looked at once unreasonably happy, like, he
extravagantly thought, a beautiful statue with the fountain of life
playing over it. "I'll come--for Old Crow."

"Pick up your duds," said he, "and I'll go along and see if I can make
anything out of her. You be ready when I come back."

Nan looked after him and thought how fast he walked and how Tira, as
well as Tira's troubles, drew him. If Tira knew the power of her own
beauty, how terribly decisive a moment this would be in the great dark
kitchen Nan had just left! And yet if Tira, having looked in her mirror
and the mirror of life, were cruelly sophisticated enough to play that
part, the man would be given odds to resist her. He was no ingenuous
youth.

XXV

Raven walked up to the side door of the house and knocked. She came at
once, her face blank of any expectation, though at seeing him she did
stand a little tenser and her lips parted with a quicker breath.

"Good morning," said he. "Aren't you going to ask me in?"

"Oh!" breathed Tira. It seemed she