“Aren’t they splendid, Kitty, these women?  More than half of them work like beavers all day, and they have young children and dozens of worries, but would you suspect it?  They’re just the women for this country.”

Now in the present state of affairs almost any other subject would have been better calculated to promote good feeling than the one on which Peter had alighted.  Kitty’s thoughts had perversely lingered about one who, though not one with these women, had yet their sturdy self-reliance, their acquiescence in grim conditions, their pleasure in simple things.  Kitty’s apprehension, slow to kindle, had taken fire like a forest, and by its blaze she saw things in a distorted light; her present vision magnified the relations of Peter and Judith to a degree that a month ago she would have regarded as impossible.  “He is her lover!” was the accusation that suddenly flashed through her mind, and with the thought an overwhelming desire to say something unkind, something that should hurt him, supplanted all judgment and reason.

“Oh, it’s a decidedly remarkable scene, pictorially, I agree with you.  And an artist, of course—­but isn’t it a trifle quixotic, Peter, to idealize them because they are having a good time?  There’s no virtue in it.  It is conceivable that they might have to work just as hard and have just as many little children to look after, and yet not have these dances you praise them for coming to.”

“I’m afraid you find us and our amusements a little crude.  Evidently the spirit of our dances does not appeal to you; but I did not suppose it necessary to remind you that they should not be judged by the standard of conventional evening parties,” said Peter, hurt and angry in his turn.

“Us, our amusements, our dances?  So you are quite identified with these people, my dear Peter, and I had thought you an ornament of cotillions and country clubs.  I can only infer that it is somebody in particular who has brought about your change of heart.”

Peter flushed a little, and Kitty kept on:  “Some of the native belles are quite wonderful, I believe.  Nannie Wetmore tells of a half-breed who is very handsome.”

Peter set his lips.  “At the expense of spoiling Nannie’s pretty romance, I must tell you that the lady she refers to is not only the most beautiful of women, but she would be at ease in any drawing-room.  It would be as ridiculous to apply the petty standards of ladyhood to her as it would to—­ well, imagine some foolish girl bringing up the question at a woman’s club—­’Was Joan of Arc a lady?’” Peter spoke without calculating the conviction that his words carried.  He was angry, and his manner, voice, intonation showed it.

Kitty, now that her most unworthy suspicions had been confirmed by Peter’s ardent championing of Judith, lost her discretion in the pang that gnawed her little soul:  “I beg your pardon, Peter.  When I spoke I did not, of course, know that this young woman was anything to you.”