Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/145

 Peter, watching Judith with something deeply sad in his blue eyes, nodded when she had finished. "Youth!" he muttered. "Youth!"

"Do you believe it, Peter?" demanded Judith.

"Yes, I do. Girl, how much high suffering will you get out of your goings on with Scott?"

"None at all, Peter."

"I wish I were twenty years younger," said Peter.

"If you were twenty years younger you wouldn't be as wise as you are now."

"And what happiness has wisdom brought me?" exclaimed Peter.

"It must be mighty fine to really know things," said Judith.

"What kind of things?"

"O, love and all that kind of thing."

"I'd like a drink of water, please!" Douglas opened his eyes.

"Have you been listening, Douglas?" demanded Judith.

"I don't think I missed any of it," Doug smiled. "You're growing up, Jude."

Judith tossed her head. "I think it was rotten of you to listen to my conversation with another man!" And although she and Peter talked in a desultory way until dawn, the vasty subject of love was not mentioned again.

About ten o'clock the next morning Charleton Falkner came to see Douglas. He hardly had established himself when the thunder of many hoofs sounded without, a wrangling of dogs began, and John Spencer thrust open the door to Peter's living quarters. He was spattered with mud from head to foot. So was Scott Parsons, who followed him, as well as Sheriff Frank Day and Jimmy Day, who brought up the procession.