MRS. RADER HAS A WORD TO SAY
through these counties the game is much the same? But it makes all the difference in the world to me—and to her. I have been to her. I have tried to show her, to make her—think! Do you suppose I haven't done everything, wouldn't do anything rather than come to you? But nothing moves her when she gets an idea in her head, when she wants something; and she has only seen the boys hereabouts, and one or two men who come here in the summer. She has always been able to do what she likes with them. You have seen how she twists poor Bert Ferrier. But you are different; you are her match! I'm afraid you're more than that. That is why I have come to you."
Dismayed and scarlet, hearing what man was never meant to hear from the lips of the third person, Carron had an instinct to beat off the woman's words like enemies. "It's absurd, ridiculous! You misjudge her, Mrs. Rader. She's never had a thought. Why, she doesn't care a flip of her finger for me!" Unconsciously he used Bert Ferrier's words.
"If you haven't noticed it," Mrs. Rader said slowly, "you are the only one." The small square of the window was growing grayer behind her. The two of them had become to each other mere voices in the dark; only the woman showed in her intensity, now and then, a gesture against the pale glimmer of glass.
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