“I think you could make it in—­in your class,” she finished with a laugh.  “You are very strong.”

Her gaze rested for a moment on the muscular neck, heavy corded, almost bull-like, bronzed by the sun, spilling over with rugged health and strength.  And though he sat there, blushing and humble, again she felt drawn to him.  She was surprised by a wanton thought that rushed into her mind.  It seemed to her that if she could lay her two hands upon that neck that all its strength and vigor would flow out to her.  She was shocked by this thought.  It seemed to reveal to her an undreamed depravity in her nature.  Besides, strength to her was a gross and brutish thing.  Her ideal of masculine beauty had always been slender gracefulness.  Yet the thought still persisted.  It bewildered her that she should desire to place her hands on that sunburned neck.  In truth, she was far from robust, and the need of her body and mind was for strength.  But she did not know it.  She knew only that no man had ever affected her before as this one had, who shocked her from moment to moment with his awful grammar.

“Yes, I ain’t no invalid,” he said.  “When it comes down to hard-pan, I can digest scrap-iron.  But just now I’ve got dyspepsia.  Most of what you was sayin’ I can’t digest.  Never trained that way, you see.  I like books and poetry, and what time I’ve had I’ve read ’em, but I’ve never thought about ’em the way you have.  That’s why I can’t talk about ’em.  I’m like a navigator adrift on a strange sea without chart or compass.  Now I want to get my bearin’s.  Mebbe you can put me right.  How did you learn all this you’ve ben talkin’?”

“By going to school, I fancy, and by studying,” she answered.

“I went to school when I was a kid,” he began to object.

“Yes; but I mean high school, and lectures, and the university.”

“You’ve gone to the university?” he demanded in frank amazement.  He felt that she had become remoter from him by at least a million miles.

“I’m going there now.  I’m taking special courses in English.”

He did not know what “English” meant, but he made a mental note of that item of ignorance and passed on.

“How long would I have to study before I could go to the university?” he asked.

She beamed encouragement upon his desire for knowledge, and said:  “That depends upon how much studying you have already done.  You have never attended high school?  Of course not.  But did you finish grammar school?”

“I had two years to run, when I left,” he answered.  “But I was always honorably promoted at school.”