Through the afternoon he was restless and out of humour, tormented less by the memory of Blossom’s face than by the little brown mole on her cheek.  He resolved a dozen times a day that he would not see her, and in the very act of resolving, he would begin to devise means of waylaying her as she went down to the store or passed to and from the pasture.  A certain sex hatred, which is closely allied to the mere physical fact of love, asserted itself at times, and he raged hotly against her coldness, her indifference, against the very remoteness that attracted him.  Then he would soften to her, and with the softening there came always the longing not only to see, but to touch her—­to breathe her breath, to lay his hand on her throat.

The next day he went to the willow copse, but she did not come.  On the one following, he took down his gun and started out to shoot partridges, but when the hour of the meeting came, he found himself wandering over the fields near the Revercombs’ pasture with his eye on the little path down which she had come that rimy October morning.  The third afternoon, when he had watched for her in a fury of disappointment, he ordered his horse and went for a gallop down the sunken road to the mill.  At the first turn, where the woods opened into a burned out clearing, he came suddenly upon her, and the hunger at his heart gave place to a delicious sense of fulfilment.

“Blossom, how can you torture me so?” he exclaimed when he had dismounted at her side and flung his arm about her.

She drew slowly away, submissive even in her avoidance.

“I did not mean to torture you—­I’m sorry,” she answered humbly.

“It’s come to this!” he burst out, “that I can’t stand it another week without losing my senses.  I’ve thought till I’m distracted.  Blossom, will you marry me?”

“O Mr. Jonathan!” she gasped while her breast fluttered like a bird’s.

“Not openly, of course—­there’s my mother to think of—­but I’ll take you to Washington—­we’ll find a way somehow.  Can’t you arrange to go to Applegate for a day or two, or let your people think you have?”

“I can—­yes—­” she responded in the same troubled tone.  “I’ve a school friend living there, and I sometimes spend several days with her.”

“Then go on Saturday—­no, let’s see—­this is Tuesday.  Can you go on Friday, darling?”

“Perhaps.  I can’t tell—­I think so—­I must see.”

As he drew her forward, she bent toward him, still softly, still humbly, and an instant later, his arms were about her and his lips pressed hers.

CHAPTER XII

THE DREAM AND THE REAL