I aims ter
be left alone fer a spell now. Ef them terms don't suit ye, ye needn't
come back at all."
And in that week of reprieved decision Alexander took her life to
pieces and searchingly examined it, item by item. Some strange
reactions were taking place in the laboratory of her life. She was no
more seen in breeches and boots. She had self-contemptuously decided
that if she could not hold undeviatingly to her strongest tenet, but
became a palpitant woman when a man seized her in his arms, she would
throw overboard the whole sorry pretense.
She would henceforth be frankly and avowedly a woman, but a woman
different from those about her, giving up none of the leadership that
was in her blood or the self-pride that was her birthright.
One afternoon she met Jerry O'Keefe on the road, and with the old
unabashed twinkle in his eye he accosted her.
"I heer tell ther big feller's back," he began and the girl flushed.
"Hev ye done run him offen yore place, too?"
"Thet's my business."
"Yes _thet_ is, but yore runnin' me off's right severely _mine_.
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