She was hard to answer.

If she had been a woman....
She saw the slow, gathering tenseness in David's face as he looked for a moment away from her bewildering eyes--the hardening muscles of his jaws; and her own hand tightened as it lay in his.
"What did Hauck mean ?" she persisted.

"Why do I belong to Brokaw--that great, red brute ?" The hand he had been holding he took between both his palms in a gentle, comforting way.

His voice was gentle, too, but the hard lines did not leave his face.
"How old are you, Marge ?" he asked.
"Seventeen," she said.
"And I am--thirty-eight." He turned to smile at her.

"See...." He raised a hand and took off his hat.