As slowly as she had read the note, Florence dressed; and even then she did not leave the room.  Bathing her reddened eyes, she drew a chair in front of the window and gazed wistfully down at the handful of green grass, with the unhealthy-looking elm in its centre, which made the Baker lawn.  Against her will there came to her a vision of the natural, impersonated in the form of Ben Blair as she had seen him yesterday.  Masterful, optimistic, compellingly honest, splendidly vital, with loves and hates like elemental forces of nature, he intruded upon her horizon at every crisis.  Try as she would to eliminate him from her life, she could not do it.  With a little catch of the breath she remembered that last night, when that man had done—­what he did—­it was not of what her father or Clarence Sidwell would think, if either of them knew, but of what Ben Blair would think, what he would do, that she most cared.  Reluctant as she might be to admit it even to herself, yet in her inner consciousness she knew that this prairie man had a power over her that no other human being would ever have.  Still, knowing this, she was deliberately turning away from him.  If she accepted that invitation for to-night, with all that it might mean, the separation from Ben would be irrevocable.  Once more the brown head dropped into the waiting hands, and the shoulders rocked to and fro in indecision and perplexity.

“God help me!” she pleaded, in the first prayer she had voiced in months.  “God help me!”

Again footsteps approached her door, and a hand tapped insistently thereon.

“Florence,” said her father’s voice.  “Are you up?”

The girl lifted her head.  “Yes,” she answered.

“Let me in, then.”  The insistence that had been in the knock spoke in the voice.  “I wish to speak with you.”

Instantly an expression almost of repulsion flashed over the girl’s brown face.  Never in his life had the Englishman understood his daughter.  He was a glaring example of those who cannot catch the psychological secret of human nature in a given situation.  From the girl’s childhood he had been complaisant when he should have been severe, had stepped in with the parental authority recognized by his race when he should have held aloof.

“Some other time, please,” replied Florence.  “I don’t feel like talking to-day.”

Scotty’s knuckles met the door-panel with a bang.  “But I do feel like it,” he responded; “and the inclination is increasing every moment.  You would try the patience of Job himself.  Come, I’m waiting!” and he shifted from one foot to the other restlessly.

Within the room there was a pause, so long that the Englishman thought he was going to be refused point-blank; then an even voice said, “Come in,” and he entered.

He had expected to find Florence defiant and aggressive at the intrusion.  If he did not understand this daughter of his, he at least knew, or thought he knew, a few of her phases.  But she had not even risen from her seat, and when he entered she merely turned her head until her eyes met his.  Scotty felt his parental dignity vanishing like smoke,—­his feelings very like those of a burglar who, invading a similar boudoir, should find the rightful owner at prayer.  His first instinct was to beat a retreat, and he stopped uncertainly just within the doorway.