For when a man reaches that
mental state which causes him to carry a girl's ribbon folded carefully
into the most secret compartment of his pocketbook, and to avoid the
girl herself and yet feel like committing assault and battery with
intent to kill, because some other man occasionally rides with her for
an hour or two, he is extremely sensitive to averted glances and chilly
tones and monosyllabic conversation.
Since the day before, when she had ridden as far as the stage road with
Dick, when he went to the line-camp, Ford had been fighting the desire
to saddle a horse and ride to town; and the thing that lured him
townward confronted him now in that gray stone jug with the brown neck
and handle.
He lifted the jug, shook it tentatively, pulled out the cork with a jerk
that was savage, and looked around the room for some place where he
might empty the contents and have done with temptation; but there was no
receptacle but the stove, so he started to the door with it, meaning to
pour it on the ground. Mose just then shambled past the window, and Ford
sat down to wait until the cook was safe in the kitchen.
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