"Don't Alf me!" Henley cried. "Get out of my sight or me 'n you'll mix right here! I didn't introduce you to that gentle girl to have you pull her around like a housemaid and force your foul lips to hers. I introduced you as a _man_, not a bar-room roustabout. No wonder she hain't took to you--no wonder she don't want to tie herself down for life to you!"
Henley had sprung into his buggy and taken up the whip and reins. "Stand out of the way!" he cried. "You've imposed on my friendship, and I don't want you ever to mention this matter to me again. I'm heartily ashamed of my part in it, and I don't want to be reminded of it."
Long tried to stop him, but, still white and furious, Henley lashed his horse, and the animal bore him out of the yard and into the street. "I ought to have given him one in the jaw!" Henley fumed. "I'll be sorry I didn't the longer I think about it--the low-lived, dirty brute!"
All the next day as Henley performed his duties at the store the hot sense of Long's stupid conduct brooded over him. One moment he was fired with fury over the man's sheer vanity, the next he was bitterly accusing himself for having been the primary cause of putting Dixie in a disagreeable position. What would she think of him, he asked himself over and over, for introducing such a despicable creature to her hospitality and good graces?
It was near sunset when he saw her pass the store, going toward the square. He went to the porch in front, unnoticed by the busy Cahews and the drowsy Pomp, and saw her, much to his surprise, enter the court-house yard, a place seldom visited by ladies. She was going up the walk to the arching stone entrance when she met the ordinary of the county, and Henley saw her pause and speak to him. The elderly, gray-haired gentleman stood for several minutes in a listening attitude, his hand cupped behind his ear, for he was slightly deaf. Presently Henley saw the two turn toward the building and enter it side by side.
"I wonder what on earth the little trick's going there for at this time of year," Henley mused. "It ain't tax-paying time."
The sun was down when she came out. He saw her coming and got his hat, timing himself so that he would meet her, as if by accident, and walk home with her. His calculations could not have been more accurate, for she was in front of the store when he came out.