“I agree with you partly,” I said.  “Still, it seems to me a man should love a woman for herself—­wholly, entirely for herself, and not because some other fellow has set his heart on her.”

“You are right there, in part,” Perry answered.  “I have set my heart on a particular young lady, but the fact that another—­a lean, cadaverous fellow with red whiskers and no particular looks or brains—­is slowly pushing himself between us makes it worse.  It aggravates me; it affects my appetite.”  Perry smiled grimly.  “It drives away sleep.  You know how it ’ud have been if that Snyder County teacher had been livin’ in Six Stars when you was keepin’ company with Emily Holmes.”

“I don’t know how it would have been at all,” I retorted hotly.

“Well, s’posin’ when you’d walked four miles to set up with her, and thought you had her all to yourself, s’pose this Snyder County teacher with red whiskers, and little twinklin’ eyes, and new clothes, come strollin’ in, and stretched out in a chair like he owned her, and begin tellin’ about all the countries he’d seen—­about England and Rome, Injy and Africa—­and she leaned for’a’d and looked up into his eyes and just listened to him talk, drank it all in like—­s’pose all that, and then s’pose——­”

“I’ll suppose anything you like,” said I, “except that I am in love with Emily Holmes and that the Snyder County teacher is cutting me out.  For example, let us put me in your place.  I am enamored of this fair unknown—­of course I can’t guess her name—­and this second man, also unknown—­he of the red whiskers, is my rival.  Let us suppose it that way.”

“If you insist,” Perry replied.  “Well then, you are settin’ up with her.  You’ve invited her to be your lady at the next spellin’ bee between Six Stars and Turkey Walley, and she has said she’ll think about it.  Then you’ve told her that there is something wrong with you.  You don’t know what it is, ‘ceptin’ you feel all peekit like for no special reason; you can’t eat no more, and sleep poorly and has sighin’ spells.  Then she kind of peeks at you outen the corner of her eye and smiles.  S’posin’ just then in comes this man and bows most polite, and tells you he is so delighted to see you, and makes her move from the settee where you are, to a rocker close to him; and leans over her and asks about the health of all the family as if they was his nearest and dearest; inquires about her dog; tells her she looks just like the portrates of his great-grandma.  S’posin’ she just kind of looks at the floor quiet-like or else up to him—­you’ll begin to think you ain’t there at all, won’t you?  Then you’ll concide that you are there but you oughtn’t to be, and kind of slide out without your hat and forget your fiddle.  I tell you, Mark, it’s then love becomes a consumin’ fire.”

[Illustration:  “You’ll begin to think you ain’t there at all.”]

Perry looked at me appealingly.  Men hesitate to speak of love—­except to women.  He had already shown a frankness that was surprising, but then with a certain deftness he had placed me in the position of the sentimental one with a problem to solve.  He was seeking for himself a solution of that problem, and was appealing to me to help him.