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On returning home to dinner next day Bancroft noticed a fine buggy drawn up outside the stable, and a negro busily engaged in grooming two strange horses. When he entered the parlour he was not surprised to find that Morris had already arrived with the lawyer. Barkman was about forty years of age; above the medium height and very stout, but active.
"You have a man with you whose trade is talk. I'm not needed," was his curt reply. Half-incensed, half-gratified by his passionate exclamation, she drew back, while Barkman, advancing, said: "Good day, Mr. Bancroft, good day. I was just tryin' to persuade Miss Conklin to come for another drive this evenin' in order to get this business of ours settled as soon as possible." "Another drive."
Wounded to the soul by Bancroft's persistent, undeserved contempt, the girl felt that now at last she had met some one who appreciated her, and she gave herself up to the charm of dexterous flattery. From her expression and manner while they drove homewards, Barkman believed that the game was his own. He went on talking to her with the reverence which he had already found to be so effective.
Barkman," she retorted, with a smiling glance at the lawyer, "I guess I must give in; if Mr. Bancroft thinks I ought ter, there's no more to be said. I'm willin'." An evening or two later, Barkman having gone into Wichita, Bancroft asked Loo to go out with him upon the stoop.
Conklin accompanied by Loo came in to announce that dinner was ready. It was manifest that the girl's beauty made a deep impression on Barkman. Before seeing her he had professed to regard the position as hopeless, or nearly so; now he was ready to reconsider his first opinion, or rather to modify it.
The common phrases of uneducated speech and the vulgar accent of what he thought her attempt at smart rejoinder offended him. Misunderstanding her literalness of mind, he moved away, and shortly afterwards re- entered the house. Of course Loo was dissatisfied with such incidents as these. When she saw Bancroft trying to draw Barkman out and throw contempt upon him, she never dreamed of objecting.
He talks well, yes, an' he's always pleasant, always; but he's jest not in it. Men air foolish anyway." She was beginning to acknowledge that all her efforts to gain her end might prove unsuccessful. Barkman, with his varied experience and the cooler blood of forty, saw more of the game than either Bancroft or Loo.
The Elder's heart seemed to stop beating, but he could not hold his loved one in his arms and at the same time realize his own pain. He stroked the bowed head gently, and after a pause: "He could study with Lawyer Barkman in Wichita, couldn't he? and then you'd be to hum still. No. Wall! Thar!" and again came a pause of silence. "I reckon, anyhow, you knew I'd help you. Didn't you now?"
But when he attacked her, she flew to her weapons. What had she done, what was she doing, to deserve his sneers? She only wished him to love her, and she felt indignantly that every time she teased him by going with Barkman, he was merciless, and whenever she abandoned herself to him, he drew back. She couldn't bear that; it was cruel of him.
Wounded to the soul by Bancroft's persistent, undeserved contempt, the girl felt that now at last she had met some one who appreciated her, and she gave herself up to the charm of dexterous flattery. From her expression and manner while they drove homewards, Barkman believed that the game was his own. He went on talking to her with the reverence which he had already found to be so effective.
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