Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/114

 they try to make the women bad. And the more you care for a girl, the more you want her to be perfect."

"The world is plumb loco and you with it!"

"You're as cold as a dead rabbit!" exclaimed Doug.

Judith laughed mirthlessly. "Yes, I'm cold! I'm as cold as fire!" And suddenly she put her head down on her knees and burst into tears.

Instantly Douglas melted. He put his arms about Judith and drew her head to his shoulder. "O Jude! Don't! If I could only make you see it's my love for you makes me so mad!"

"You—you don't want me to have any fun!" sobbed Judith. "How'd you like to be asked to give up everything yourself and stay home like a woman?"

"I wouldn't like it. But a regular girl oughtn't to want to do such things."

"Why not? I like horses and dogs and the wind on Fire Mesa just as much as you do. And dancing and hunting by moonlight and getting away with somebody else's cattle and all of it. I love it! And you ask me to give it up because you want me to be good. What do you call good, anyhow?"

Douglas did not answer at once. In the first place, Judith's flushed cheek in his neck upset his equilibrium, and in the second place he was overwhelmed with a sudden consciousness of the truth of Peter's statement, that he had not a cleancut idea to his name.

But finally he stammered, "Well, I call being good not drinking or stealing or being loose with men or any of those things—for a girl."

"And for a man?" asked Judith, sitting erect.

"Aw, who wants a man to be good?" laughed Douglas.