He turned the wheel and sprang out, asking eagerly, "Is it anywhere that I can take you?"
"No, you're going in exactly the opposite direction, for I'm bound for the spring in the Lindsey woods. Miss Marks asked me to meet her there at eleven o'clock, but her note didn't come until aftah mothah had gone out with the carriage."
Alex glanced at his watch. "If you could wait till I take this case of instruments up to Uncle, I could drive you over as well as not. It would detain you ten minutes, but even then you'd get to the Spring much sooner than if you were to walk."
"I'll certainly accept yoah offah," exclaimed Lloyd gratefully, looking down the long hot way that lay between her and the Lindsey woods.
"No, I'll not drive ovah to the doctah's with you, thanks. That is such a hot, dusty stretch of road. I'll just sit heah in the shade and wait." Laying the hunter's horn on the stone bench near the gate, she sat down beside it and began to fan herself with her hat.
"What's going on at the spring?" he asked as he climbed back into the buggy.
"I can't tell you. All I know is that old Frazer came up with a note asking me to pose as Olga, the Flax-spinnah's maiden. Miss Marks is always illustrating some old fairy-tale. She wanted me to bring grandfathah's hunting hawn for the prince. I've been wondering evah since who she's found to take that paht."
"Harcourt, I'll bet you anything!" was Alex's emphatic answer as he gathered up the reins. "I saw him over at Clovercroft yesterday morning, setting up a tripod in front of the bay window. Well, here goes. I'll be back in ten minutes."
As Lloyd watched the cloud of dust whirling along behind the rapidly disappearing buggy, the impulse seized her to call out after him that he needn't come back to take her to the spring, for she was not going. Several times that morning the suspicion had crossed her mind that Miss Marks's new model might prove to be Leland Harcourt, and Alex's emphatic answer seemed to confirm her misgivings. If that were the case she felt that she could not possibly go. He had made such a point of avoiding her that night at the Cabin, that even Betty had noticed it, and she was very sure she didn't want to have her picture taken with a man who had showed his aversion to her so plainly as all that. It would be horribly awkward, she thought, if Miss Marks had asked him to pose with her. He would have to stoop and drink out of her hands as the prince had done out of Olga's. Of course he couldn't refuse, and it would be disagreeable to him and embarrassing to her, knowing as she did how he felt towards her.
It was unlike Lloyd to be sensitive over little things, and to magnify trifles, and she had been unhappy for several days because she had done so in this instance. If she had met Leland Harcourt like any other stranger, she would not have given his manner toward her a second thought; but Gay's plea beforehand in his behalf made her self-conscious. Of course he couldn't possibly know that she had lain awake, looking at the stars, picturing herself as a sort of guardian angel, who should lead him to great heights of achievement (as Gay had assured her she could do). But she felt that he must have divined her intentions toward him, and was secretly amused at her presumption. Her face burned every time she thought of the regal manner in which she had swept into the room, trying to make her entrance impressive, and then the polite way in which he had handed her over to some one else as if she were a mere child to whom he must be civil, but whose school-girl prattle bored him.