So she stood suffering dumbly while he loaded his
cream can and stood by the wheel ready to mount his wagon.
He turned. "I'm mighty sorry about it," he said. "Mebbe I was to
blame. I didn't mean nothing by it-not a thing. It was all a mistake.
Let's shake hands over it and call the whole business off."
He held his hand out to her, and with a low cry she seized it and
laid her cheek upon it. He started back in amazement and drew his
hand away. She fell upon her knees in the path and covered her
face with her apron, while he hastily mounted his seat and drove
away.
Nothing so profoundly moving had come into his life since the
death of his mother, and as he rode on down the road he did a great
deal of thinking. First it gave him a pleasant sensation to think a
woman should care so much for him. He had lived a homeless life
for years and had come into intimate relations with few women,
good or bad. They had always laughed with him (not at him, for
Claude was able to take care of himself), and no woman before
had taken him seriously, and there was a certain charm about the
realization.
Then he fell to wondering what he had said or done to give the girl
such a notion of his purposes.
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