Around him the landscape swept like an emerald sea, over which the small shadows rippled in passing waves, beginning at the rail fence skirting the red clay road and breaking at last upon the darker green of the far-off pines.Here and there a tall pink blossom rose like a fantastic sail from the deep and rocked slowly to and fro in the summer wind.When at last the sun dropped behind the distant wood and a red flame licked at the western clouds, he still lingered on, dreaming idly, while his hands followed their accustomed task.Big green moths hovered presently around him, seeking the deep rosy tubes of the clustered flowers, and alighting finally to leave their danger-breeding eggs under the drooping leaves.The sound of laughter floated suddenly from the small Negro children, who were pursuing the tobacco flies between the furrows.He had ceased from his work, and come out into the little path that trailed along the edge of the field, when he saw a woman's figure, in a gown coloured like April flowers, pass from the new road over the loosened fence-rails.For a breathless instant he wavered in the path; then turning squarely, he met her questioning look with indifferent eyes.The new romance had shriveled at the first touch of the old hatred.Maria, holding her skirt above her ruffled petticoat, stood midway of the little trail, a single tobacco blossom waving over her leghorn hat.She was no longer the pale girl who had received Carraway with so composed a bearing, for her face and her gown were now coloured delicately with an April bloom."I followed the new road," she explained, smiling, "and all at once it ended at the fence.Where can I take it up again?" He regarded her gravely."The only way you can take it up again is to go back to it," he answered."It doesn't cross my land, you know, and--I beg your pardon--but I don't care to have you do so.Besides staining your dress, you will very likely bruise my tobacco." He had never in his life stood close to a woman who wore perfumed garments, and he felt, all at once, that her fragrance was going to his brain.Delicate as it was, he found it heady, like strong drink."But I could walk very close to the fence," said the girl, surprised."Aren't you afraid of the poisonous oak?" "Desperately.I caught it once as a child.It hurt so." He shook his head impatiently."Apart from that, there is no reason why you should come on my land.All the prettiest walks are on the other side--and over here the hounds are taught to warn off trespassers." "Am I a trespasser?" "You are worse,"he replied boorishly; "you're a Fletcher." "Well, you're a savage," she retorted, angered in her turn."Is it simply because I happen to be a Fletcher that you become a bear?" "Because you happen to be a Fletcher," he repeated, and then looked calmly and coolly at her dainty elegance.
"And if I were anybody else, I suppose, you would let me walk along that fence, and even be polite enough to keep the dogs from eating me up?" "If you were anybody else and didn't injure my tobacco--yes.""But as it is I must keep away?"
"All I ask of you is to stay on the other side." "And if Idon't?" she questioned, her spirit flaring up to match with his, "and if I don't?" All the natural womanhood within her responded to the appeal of his superb manhood; all the fastidious refinement with which she was overlaid was alive to the rustic details which marred the finished whole--to the streak of earth across his forehead, to the coarseness of his ill-fitting clothes, to the tobacco juice staining his finger nails bright green.On his side, the lady of his dreams had shrunken to a witch; and he shook his head again in an effort to dispel the sweetness that so strangely moved him."In that case you will meet the hounds one day and get your dress badly torn, I fear.""And bitten, probably." "Probably." "Well, I don't think it would be worth it," said the girl, in a quiver of indignation."If Ican help it, I shall never set my foot on your land again." "The wisest thing you can do is to keep off," he retorted.Turning, with an angry movement, she walked rapidly to the fence, heedless of the poisonous oak along the way; and Christopher, passing her with a single step, lowered the topmost rails that she might cross over the more easily."Thank you," she said stiffly, as she reached the other side."It was a pleasure," he responded, in the tone his father might have used when in full Grecian dress at the fancy ball."You mean it is a pleasure to assist in getting rid of me?""What I mean doesn't matter," he answered irritably, and added, "Iwish to God you were anybody else!" At this she turned and faced him squarely as he held the rails."But how can I help being myself?" she demanded."You can't, and there's an end of it." "Of what?" "Oh, of everything--and most of all of the evening at the cross-roads." "You saw me then?" she asked."You know I did," he answered, retreating into his rude simplicity."And you liked me then?""Then," he laughed, "why, I was fool enough to dream of you for a month afterward." "How dare you!" she cried."Well, I shan't do it again," he assured her insolently."You can't possibly dislike me any more than I do you," she remarked, drawing back step by step."You're a savage, and a mean one at that--but all the same, I should like to know why you began to hate me." He laid the topmost rail along the fence and turned away."Ask your grandfather!" he called back, as he passed into the tobacco field, with her fragrance still in his nostrils.
