YOU, Mad Wayne, what do you mean by not speaking to me--not knowing me?
You can't say that I've changed like that." She passed her hand down her
long dripping braids as if to press the water from them, and yet with a
half-coquettish suggestion in the act.

Something struggled up into the man's face which was not there before.
There was a new light in his grave eyes. "You look the same," he said
slowly; "but you are married--you have a husband."

"You think that changes a girl?" she said, with a laugh "That's where
all you men slip up! You're afraid of his rifle--THAT'S the change that
bothers you, Mad."

"You know I care little for carnal weapons," he said quietly. She DID
know it; but it is the privilege of the sex to invent its facts and then
to graciously abandon them as if they were only arguments. "Then why do
you keep off from me? Why do you look the other way when I pass?" she
said quickly.

"Because you are married," he said slowly.

She again shook the water from her like a Newfoundland dog. "That's it.
You're mad because I got married. You're mad because I wouldn't marry
you and your church over on the cross roads, and sing hymns with you and
become SISTER Wayne. You wanted me to give up dancing and buggy ridin'
Sundays--and you're just mad because I didn't. Yes, mad--just mean, baby
mad, Mr. Maddy Wayne, for all your CHRISTIAN resignation! That's what's
the matter with you." Yet she looked very pretty and piquant in her
small spitefulness, which was still so general and superficial that
she seemed to shake it out of her wet petticoats in a vicious flap that