supposin' you and that Snyder County chap had been opposin' one another
instead of you and Emily Holmes--I allow her name would have been
changed to Emily Hope long ago, or you'd 'a' drownded yourself."

"But I never had any intention of marrying Emily Holmes," I protested.

"I know you didn't," Perry replied, thumping the table in triumph.
"That's just the pint. If the world was popilated by one man and one
woman, they'd be a bachelor and an old maid. If there was two men and
one woman, then one of the men would marry the old maid sure."

"Your meaning is more clear," I said.

Though Perry did not know it, I was meeting the same opposition that so
aroused his ire. In part there was truth in what he said, for while
opposition does not increase one's love, it surely quickens it. I
doubt if I should have been making a journey nightly up the hill if I
had not expected to find Weston there. Of Perry I had no fear, and it
was not egotism in me to be indifferent to him. He lives so far down
the valley. It's a long walk from Buzzards Glory to Six Stars, and the
road has many chuck-holes. Perry is our man-about-the-valley _par
excellence_, but he is discreet, so it had chanced we met but once at
Warden's, and that was on the night when we heard the story of Flora
Martin and the famine in India. He knew me still as a friend, and not
regarding him as a rival, I treated him as a companion in arms. To be
sure, I could not see where he could be of much assistance; but we had
a common aim and a common foe. That made a bond between us. With that
common foe disposed of, the bond might snap. Till then I was Perry's
friend.