“I’ll see you home,” he said, formally.  “I hain’t got nothin’ to say.”

“It—­it’s not your fault,” she said, tremulously.

“Somebody’ll wisht it wa’n’t their fault ’fore mornin’,” he answered.

“I shouldn’t have gone.”

“Why?  Hain’t you as good as any of them, and better?  Hain’t you the pertiest girl I ever see?...  You hain’t mad with me, be you?”

“’No....  Not with anybody, I guess.  I—­I ought to be used to it.  I—­” She began to cry.

It was a dark spot there on the bridge.  Homer was not apt at words, but he could feel and he did feel.  It was no mere impulse to comfort a pretty girl that moved him to inclose her with his muscular arms and to press her to him none too gently.

“I kin lick the hull world fer you,” he said, huskily, and then he kissed her wet cheek again and again, and repeated his ability to thrash all comers in her cause, and stated his desire to undertake exactly that task for the term of her natural life.  “If you was to marry me,” he said, “they wouldn’t nobody dast trample on you....  You’re a-goin’ to marry me, hain’t you?”

“I—­I don’t know....  You—­you don’t know anything about me.”

“Calc’late I know enough,” he said.

“Your folks wouldn’t put up with it.”

“Huh!”

There was a silence.  Then she said, brokenly:  “I must go away.  I can’t ever go back to the store to-morrow to have everybody staring at me and talking about me....  I want to go away to-night.”

“You sha’n’t.  Nor no other time, neither.”

And then, out of the darkness behind, spoke Scattergood Baines’s voice.  “Hain’t calc’latin’ to bust the gal, be you?...  Jest happened along to say the deacon’s been talkin’ to your pa about you ‘n’ her, and your pa’s het up consid’able.  He’s startin’ out to look fer you.  Lucky I come along, wa’n’t it?”

“I’m of age,” said Homer, aggressively.

“Lots is,” said Scattergood. “‘Tain’t nothin’ to take special pride in....  Homer, I’ve watched you raised from a colt, hain’t I?  Be you willin’ to kind of leave this here to me a spell?  I sort of want to look into things.  You go along about your business and leave me talk to Wife-ette here....  Made up your mind you want her?”

“Yes.”

“She want you?”

“I—­What business is it of yours?” Yvette demanded, angrily.  “Who are you?  What are you interfering for?”

“Kind of a habit with me,” said Scattergood, “and my wife hain’t ever been able to cure me, even puttin’ things in my coffee on the sly....  G’-by, Homer.  And don’t go lickin’ nobody.  G’-by.”

The habit of obedience to Scattergood’s customary dismissal was strong in Coldriver.  For more than a generation the town had been trained to heed it and to trust its affairs to the old hardware merchant.  Homer hesitated, coughed, mumbled good night to Yvette, and slouched away.