trying to help you! Asking you to name your figure."
"And threatening me if I refuse!" Her voice was sharp and brittle and brought slow color to Rowe's face.
"You are too hasty, Miss Foraker."
"Too tardy, I should say. I don't care to sell, Mr. Rowe, and I have work to do."
She rose.
The man leaned back in his chair and smiled. "You have the courage to refuse a man who has all he wants but happiness and sees happiness in the possession of your forest?"
"I haven't the courage to give you what you want."
He looked narrowly at her then. She was beyond his experience, neither a grasping old maid, an empty-headed girl or the type of business woman he had ever encountered; young in years, old in experience and her manner carried a front that quite baffled him.
"I don't wholly understand you," he said, as though that did not matter, or as though it might flatter her, "and perhaps you don't understand me quite thoroughly.
"There are other factors involved. You've been doing a courageous but unwise thing by meddling in politics."
"Politics?"
"The story is coming out about Saturday's affair in the court house—oh, yes, I know about that too! Strangely, people throughout the county do not seem to think as you think that their supervisors are all scoundrels. They believe that there was black work from the other side, from you, Miss Foraker. They believe they have lost their chance at improvements through the efforts of Senator Bryant on your behalf. Their temper is not pleasant."
