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Updated: May 15, 2025
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?"
I've no pride at all when I think of him, except I know that no one else could make him as happy as I could. Oh my!" and she sighed with a sense of the mysterious unnecessary suffering in life. "An' he goes on bein' mad with Lawyer Barkman. Fancy, that fat old man. He warn't jealous of Seth Stevens or the officer, no; but of him. Why, it's silly. Barkman don't count anyway.
She was vain, no doubt, and lacking in the finer sensibilities, the tremulous moral instincts which are the crown and glory of womanhood; but it was not her fault that her education had been faulty, her associates coarse and after all she was very beautiful. On returning home one afternoon he saw Barkman walking with her in the peach orchard.
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.
Barkman was kind, and good to her; but she didn't care for him, and she loved George still. Oh, why wasn't he like the other, always sympathetic and admiring? She sat and thought. In the depths of her nature she felt that she couldn't give George up, couldn't make up her mind to lose him; and why should she, since they loved each other? What could she do? Of a sudden she paused.
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.
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.
The girl looked up at him, only half understanding his rhapsody, but glowing with the hope called to life by his extravagant praise of her. "Why, George," she said shyly, because wholly won, "I don't think no more of Lawyer Barkman than the moon thinks of the fence an' I guess that's not much," she added, with a little laugh of complete content.
He was still determined not to be seduced into making Loo his wife. But now the jealousy that is born of desire and vanity tormented him, and the mere thought that Barkman might marry and live with her irritated him intensely. She was worthy of better things than marriage with such a man.
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.
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