"What is it?" she asked.
"Agatha," he said. "She's been having some severe heart attacks
lately, and she just gave me a real scare."
Instantly Kate forgot everything, except Agatha, whom she
cordially liked, and Robert, who appeared older, more tired, and
worried than she ever had seen him. She thought Agatha had "given
him a real scare," and she decided that it scarcely would have
been bad enough to put lines in his face she never had noticed
before, dark circles under his eyes, a look of weariness in his
bearing. She doubted as she looked at him if he were really
courting Mrs. Southey. Even as she thought of these things she
was asking: "She's better now?"
"Yes, easier, but she suffered terribly. Adam was upset
completely. Adam, 3d, and Susan and their families are away from
home and won't be back for a few days unless I send for them.
They went to Ohio to visit some friends. I stopped to ask if it
would be possible for you to go down this evening and sleep there,
so that if there did happen to be a recurrence, Adam wouldn't be
alone."
"Of course," said Kate, glancing at the baby. "I'll go right
away!"
"No need for that," he said, "if you'll arrange to stay with Adam
to-night, as a precaution. You needn't go till bed-time. I'm
going back after supper to put them in shape for the night. I'm
almost sure she'll be all right now; but you know how frightened
we can get about those we love."
"Yes, I know," said Kate, quietly, going straight on ripping open
ear after ear of corn. Presently she wondered why he did not go.
She looked up at him and met his eyes. He was studying her
intently. Kate was vividly conscious in an instant of her bare
wind-teased head, her husking gloves; she was not at all sure that
her face was clean. She smiled at him, and picking up the
sunbonnet lying beside her, she wiped her face with the skirt.
"If this sun hits too long on the same spot, it grows warm," she
told him.
"Kate, I do wish you wouldn't!" he exclaimed abruptly.
Kate was too forthright for sparring.
"Why not?" she asked.
"For one thing, you are doing a man's work," he said. "For
another, I hate to see you burn the loveliest hair I ever saw on
the head of a woman, and coarsen your fine skin."
Kate looked down at the ear of corn she held in her hands, and
considered an instant.
"There hasn't any man been around asking to relieve me of this
work," she said. "I got my start in life doing a man's work, and
I'm frank to say that I'd far rather do it any day, than what is
usually considered a woman's. As for my looks, I never set a
price on them or let them interfere with business, Robert."