Carew whirled around on him. "Do you think I could be jealous of a country clod?"
"Oh," Hildegarde's voice was low and deep with anger, "Crispin's not a clod. He's—beautiful. He's like a young god out there under the wide skies."
She was so much in earnest that her poetic exaggeration took on an effect of dignity. There was dignity, too, in the way she left them, her head up, without a word.
When the two men were alone, Meriweather said, leaning forward and looking into the fire, "If she were mine, I would never let her go."
"It's not your affair, Merry. If she doesn't care any more for me that that—"
"She does care for you. But she won't be dictated to. It's your own blood, Louis."
Carew was held by that. "Yes, she's like me. That's why she means so much to me. She's bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh."
"Yet you are letting her go?"
"But what can I do?"
"Let her have him here. It is much simpler. She will see him then away from the wide skies which make him—beautiful." A faint smile curled on Meriweather's lip. "Distance lends enchantment. When she compares him with your friends, there may be disillusionment."
"You mean that he won't fit in, and she'll know it?"
"Yes."
"If I thought that, I'd let her have her way."
"Let her have it, Louis. Go up and tell her now.
