“Mr. Weaver will do as he thinks best about that.”  The spinster shut her lips tight and walked from the room.

Supper was brought to Phyllis by the Mexican woman.  In spite of her indignation she ate and slept well.  Nor did her appetite appear impaired next morning, when she breakfasted in her bedroom.  Noon found her promoted to the family dining room.  Weaver carried his arm in a sling, but made no reference to the fact.  He attempted conversation, but Phyllis withdrew into herself and had nothing more friendly than a plain “No” or “Yes” for him.  His sister was presently called away to arrange some household difficulty.  At once Phyllis attacked the big man lounging in his chair at his ease.

“I want to go home.  I’ve got to be at the schoolhouse to-morrow morning,” she announced.

“It won’t hurt you any to miss a few days’ schooling, my dear.  You’ll learn more here than you will there, anyhow,” he assured her pleasantly.  Buck was cracking two walnuts in the palm of his hand and let his lazy smile drift her way only casually.

She stamped her foot.  “I tell you I’m the teacher.  It is necessary I should be there.”

“You a schoolmarm!” he repeated, in surprise.  “How old are you?”

Her dress was scarcely below her shoe tops.  She still had the slimness of immature girlhood, the adorable shy daring of some uncaptured wood nymph.

“Does that matter to you, sir?”

“How old?” he reiterated.

“Going-on-eighteen,” she answered—­not because she wanted to, but because somehow she must.  There was something compelling about this man’s will.  She would have resisted it had she not wanted to gain her point about going home.

“So you teach the kids their A B C’s, do you?  And you just out of them yourself!  How many scholars have you?”

“Fourteen.”

“And they all love teacher, of course.  Would you take me for a scholar, Miss Going-On-Eighteen?”

“No!” she flamed.

“You’d find me right teachable.  And I would promise to love you, too.”

Color came and went in her face beneath the brow.  How dared he mock her so!  It humiliated and embarrassed and angered her.

“Are you going to let me go back to my school?” she demanded.

“I reckon your school will have to get along without you for a few days.  Your fourteen scholars will keep right on loving you, I expect.  ’To memory dear, though far from eye.’  Or, if you like, I’ll send my boys up into the hills, and round up the whole fourteen here for you.  Then school can keep right here in the house.  How about that?  Ain’t that a good notion, Miss Going-On-Eighteen?”

She could stand his ironic mockery no longer.  She faced him, fearless as a tiger:  “You villain!”

With that, turning on her heel, she passed swiftly into her little bedroom, and slammed the door.  He heard the key turn in the lock.