ng out of her hot emotions she pitched the battle on that single
issue, an issue which seemed to determine whether after all she was
fighting in fairness and clean conscience for independence, or only
clinging to a selfishness that trod toward its gratification on the
happiness of others.

"Prove that to me," she retorted in the same cold fury. "Prove that he
doesn't need me and that I'm thinking only of myself, and I'll marry
anybody you say. I'll obediently deliver myself over and say, 'Here's
your marriageable asset. Do what you like with it.'"

Her words had not been torrential, but glacially cold and hard under the
congealing pressure of indignation, but now the tone broke into
something like a sob, as she declared:

"Boone has had only one girl in his life. His whole scheme has been
built about me. Show me that a love like that is only a whim, and I'll
agree that this chattel idea of marriage is as good as any other, and
I'll submit to it."

Swiftly Larry Masters repressed a smile. Anne, he reflected, did not
realize how often that refurbished fiction has been retailed as an axiom
by young hearts in equinox.

"Why did you smile, Father?" she demanded militantly, and he shook his
heed.

"I was only reflecting," he assured her, "that every girl thinks that of
every man she loves."

"Do you know of anything to disprove it in the present case?"

"Since you ask," he made hesitant reply, "I did hear some
unsubstantiated rumours hereabouts that he had proposed and been
rejected by a mountain girl--Cyrus Spradling's daughter."

Cyrus Spradling's daughter! At the name, Anne saw again the lank
mountaineer of the loose joints and the uncombed hair, who this morning
had parted from her mumbling maledictions against Boone.

He had been a mystery then. Now his name falling into the conversation
like a shell that has found its range, had the demoralizing force of an
explosion. Her belief was no weathervane to veer lightly, but the bruise
on her heart was sensitive even to the touch of a breeze, and it was
freshly sore.

"Who--ever told you that," she asseverated in slow syllables, "was a
liar. I'd gamble my life on it." Then having made her confession of
faith in those staunch terms, she illogically demanded, "When was this
alleged affair?"

"Just after he finished college, I believe. I can't be quite sure."

"At that time," said Anne Masters, "and before that, and after that,
Boone loved me. It was no divided o