“I am going to stay here as long as you will let me,” she said to Mrs. Flippin; “you will tell me if I am in the way——­”

Mrs. Flippin adored Madge.  “It is like having a Princess in the house,” she said, “only she don’t act like a Princess.”

The Major came over every afternoon.  Kemp drove him, as a rule, in the King’s Crest surrey.  If the little man missed Dalton’s cars, he said no word.  He made the Major very comfortable.  He lived a life of ease if not of elegance, and he loved the wooded hills, the golden air, the fine old houses, the serene autumn glory of this southern world.

On the afternoon when the Major talked to Madge of the world at peace, they were together under the apple tree which Madge had first seen from the window of the east room.  There were other apple trees in the old orchard, but it was this tree that Madge liked because of its golden globes.  “The red ones are wonderful,” she said, “but red isn’t my color.  With my gold skin, they make me look like a gypsy.  If I am to be a golden girl, I must stay away from red——­”

“Is that what you are—­a golden girl?”

“That was always George Dalton’s name for me.”

“I am sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because I should like it to be mine for you.  I should like to link my golden West with the thought of you.”

“And you won’t now, because it was somebody else’s name for me?”

Kemp, before he went away, had made her comfortable with cushions in a chair-like crotch of the old tree.  The Major was at her feet.  He meditated a moment.  “I shall make it my name for you.  What do I care what other men have called you.”

“Do you know what you called me—­once?” she was smiling down at him.

“No.”

“A little lame duck.  It was when I first tried to use my foot.  And you laughed, and said that it—­linked us—­together.  And now you are trying to link me with your West——­”

“You know why, of course.”

“Yes, I do.”

He drew a long breath.  “Most women would have said, ‘No, I don’t know.’  But you told the truth.  I want to link you with my life in every way I can because I love you.  And you know that I care—­very much—­that I want you for my wife—­my golden girl in my golden West——?”

“You have never told me before that—­you cared.”

“There was no need to tell it.  You knew.”

“Yes.  I was afraid it was true——­”

He was startled.  “Afraid?  Why?”

“Oh, I oughtn’t to let you care,” she said.  “You don’t know what a slacker I’ve been.  And I don’t want you to find out——­”

“The only thing that I want to find out is whether you care for me.”

She flushed a little under his steady gaze, then quite unexpectedly she reached her hand down to him.  He took it in his firm clasp.  “I do care—­an awful lot,” she said, “but I’ve tried not to.  And I shouldn’t let you care for me.”