“Yes.”

“But why—­wait?”

“How can I break away?  I am tied into knots with the people whom I have always known; and I shall keep on doing the things I have always done, just as I shall keep on wearing pale purples and letting my skin get burned, so that I may seem distinctive.”

It came to him with something of a shock that she did these things with intention.  That the charms which seemed to belong to her were carefully planned.

Yet how could he tell if what she said was true, when her eyes laughed?

“I shall get all I can out of being here.  Mary Flippin is going to let me help her make butter, and Mrs. Flippin will teach me to make corn-bread, and some day I am going fishing with the Judge and Mr. Flippin and learn to fry eggs out-of-doors——­”

“So those are the things you like?”

She nodded.  “I think I do.  George Dalton says it is only because I crave a change.  But it isn’t that.  And I haven’t told him the way I feel about it—­the Dickens way—­as I have told you.”

He was glad that she had not talked to Dalton as she had talked to him.

“I wonder,” he said slowly, “why you couldn’t shake yourself free from the life which binds you?”

“I’m not strong enough.  I’m like the drug-fiend, who doesn’t want his drug, but can’t give it up.”

“Perhaps you need—­help.  There are doctors of everything, you know, in these days.”

“None that can cure me of the habit of frivolity—­of the claims of custom——­”

“If a man takes a drug, he is cured, by substituting something else for a while until he learns to do without it.”

“What would you substitute for—­my drug?”

“I’ll have to think about it.  May I come again and tell you?”

“Of course.  I am dying to know.”

Mrs. Flippin entered just then with a tall pitcher of lemonade and a plate of delicate cakes.  “I think Miss MacVeigh is looking mighty fine,” she said, “don’t you, Major?”

He would not have dared to tell how fine she looked to him.

He limped across the room with the plate of cakes, and poured lemonade into a glass for Madge.  Her eyes followed his strong soldierly figure.  What a man he must have been before the war crippled him.  What a man he was still, and his strength was not merely that of body.  She felt the strength too of mind and soul.

“I think,” said Mrs. Flippin that night, “that Major Prime is one of the nicest men.”

Madge was in bed.  The nurse had made her ready for the night, and was out on the porch with Mr. Flippin.  Mrs. Flippin had fallen into the habit of having a little nightly talk with Madge.  She missed her daughter, and Madge was pleasant and friendly.

“I think that Major Prime is one of the nicest men,” repeated Mrs. Flippin as she sat down beside the bed, “but what a dreadful thing that he is lame.”