Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/211

 it's a good idea if the chap they confess to is the right kind. I don't believe a word of your religion and yet I have a feeling that you are the right kind. Judith! She's twenty-one now. I'm six foot one. She's about two inches shorter. Weighs, I guess, fifty pounds lighter. Finest gray eyes you ever saw. Red cheeks. Her mouth used to be too big, but now it's perfect. Rides and breaks a horse better than any man in the Valley, bar none. Loves animals and can tame and train anything. A great reader." Douglas paused.

"She sounds very attractive. What's the trouble?" asked the preacher.

Douglas twisted his hands together. "You know who Inez Rodman is. Well, she is Jude's best friend! And she has formed all of Judith's ideas about love and marriage."

"Yet you say Judith is straight?"

"She sure-gawd is! But how can it last? She's restless and discontented and Inez is brilliant, feeds Judith's mind."

"Has her mother any influence over her?"

"None at all."

"How about her father?" asked the preacher.

"Of course, he's only her foster-father. She likes him and she hates him. He certainly couldn't help her."

"And you are sure there is no hope in Judith's mother?"

"O she's just broken, like a patient fool horse. Good as gold, you know, but with about as much influence over Jude as a kitten. Judith hasn't any one to tie to, not any one. Peter is all right but he jaws too much. She hasn't any one."

"Doesn't she care for you?"