“Well, I’m going to set out to make the stiff-necks of this town turn to look at my girl, all right.  I’m going to buy you a chain of diamonds that’ll dazzle their eyes out; I’m—­”

“Charley, Charley, that’s not what I want, boy.  Now that I’ve got you, there ain’t a chain of diamonds on earth I’d turn my wrist for.”

“Yes, there is, girl; there’s a string of pear-shaped ones in—­”

“I want you to buck up, honey; that’s the finest present you can give me.  I want you to buck up like you didn’t have a cent to your name.  I want you to throw up your head the way you do when you mean business, and show that Charley Cox, without a cent to his name, would be—­”

“Would be what, honey?”

“A winner.  You got brains, Charley—­if only you’d have gone through school and shown them.  If you’d only have taken education, Charley, and not got fired out of all the academies, my boy would beat ’em all.  Lord! boy, there’s not a day passes over my head I don’t wish for education.  That’s why I’m so crazy my little sister Genevieve should get it.  I’d have took to education like a fish to water if I’d have had the chance, and there you were, Charley, with every private school in town and passed ’em up.”

“I know, girl, just looks like every steer I gave myself was the wrong steer till it was too late to get in right again.  Bad egg, I tell you, honey.”

“Too late!  Why, Charley—­and you not even thirty-one yet?  With your brains and all—­too late!  You make me laugh.  If only you will—­why, I’m game to go out West, Charley, on a ranch, where you can find your feet and learn to stand on them.  You got stuff in you, you have.  Jess Turner says you was always first in school, and when you set your jaw there wasn’t nothing you couldn’t get on top of.  If you’d have had a mother and—­and a father that wasn’t the meanest old man in town, dear, and had known how to raise a hot-headed boy like you, you’d be famous now instead of notorious—­that’s what you’d be.”

He patted her yellow hair, tilting her head back against his arm, pinching her cheeks together and kissing her puckered mouth.

“Dream on, honey.  I like you crazy, too.”

“But, honey, I—­”

“You married this millionaire kid, and, bless your heart, he’s going to make good by showing you the color of his coin!”

“Charley!”

She sprang back from the curve of his embrace, unshed tears immediately distilled.

“Why, honey—­I didn’t mean it that way!  I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.  What I meant was—­’sh-h-h-h, Loo—­all I meant was, it’s coming to you.  Where’d the fun be if I couldn’t make this town point up its ears at my girl?  Nobody knows any better than your hubby what his Loo was cut out for.  She was cut out for queening it, and I’m going to see that she gets what’s her due.  Wouldn’t be surprised if the papers have us already.  Let’s see what we’ll give them with their coffee this morning.”