Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/51

 She tried to communicate her feelings to Yekial but he was impatient.

"Don't be a fed!" he said.44What's the matter? Are you still a child?"

"Perhaps," she said dully. "Se few of us ever attain maturity. We prate about our knowledge and after all what do we ever know? Measured by the wisdom of the universe we never succeed in growing mentally beyond infancy."

"I do not care for psychology," he grumbled. "I leave that to professors who cannot gain a living in any other way. It is all bunk. A contented man could be contented anywhere."

"Platitudes," said she, "are equally as obnoxious as psychology. Anyway you may as well know the truth. This loneliness is killing me."

"I find it rather pleasant."

"Our viewpoints are different. To keep from growing mad, I've got to go to Fort Wayne. I'll stop at a hotel for a day or two to get my nerves back into shape."

"Why?" he asked curtly. "Have you not been well-treated here?"

"Don't use that tone of voice to me," she cried hysterically. "You make me feel as though I'm a patient in an asylum. I've simply got to get away from this hellish farm."

At that his anger flamed up so terrifically that he almost foamed at the mouth. His face grew red with fury. This woman had dared to curse his farm. To him it was blasphemy. He loved the broad sweeping acres, the house in which he had been born. His life had been a saga of the soil, somewhat drab in spots, ofttimes rising to a lofty pinnacle.

There was frequently a beauty about it that was lyrical. There was music in the fields. The soil had always been kind to him. Not one year had his crops failed. Because of the treasures of the soil he was a rich man. He need never work again unless he wished to. But he remained in the fields. He remained true to the mistress that had been so fertile for him. And this woman had dared to cast curses on the soil!

So great was his fury he was inarticulate. Mary Blaine stood staring at him. His wrath amused her. At least it was an