CHAPTER 11. Sir Redmond Waits His Answer.
Beatrice felt distinctly out of sorts the next day, and chose an hour for her ride when she felt reasonably secure from unwelcome company. But when she went out into the sunshine there was Sir Redmond waiting with Rex and his big gray. Beatrice was not exactly elated at the sight, but she saw nothing to do but smile and make the best of it. She wanted to be alone, so that she could dream along through the hills she had learned to love, and think out some things which troubled her, and decide just how she had best go about winning Rex for herself; it had become quite necessary to her peace of mind that she should teach Dick and Keith Cameron a much-needed lesson.
“It has been so long since we rode together,” he apologized. “I hope you don't mind my coming along.”
“Oh, no! Why should I mind?” Beatrice smiled upon him in friendly fashion. She liked Sir Redmond very much—only she hoped he was not going to make love. Somehow, she did not feel in the mood for love-making just then.
“I don't know why, I'm sure. But you seem rather fond of riding about these hills by yourself. One should never ask why women do things, I fancy. It seems always to invite disaster.”
“Does it?” Beatrice was not half-listening. They were passing, just then, the suburbs of a “dog town,” and she was never tired of watching the prairie-dogs stand upon their burrows, chip-chip defiance until fear overtook their impertinence, and then dive headlong deep into the earth. “I do think a prairie-dog is the most impudent creature alive and the most shrewish. I never pass but I am scolded by these little scoundrels till my ears burn. What do you think they say?”
“They're probably inviting you to stop with them and be their queen, and are scolding because your heart is hard and you only laugh and ride on.”
“Queen of a prairie-dog town! Dear me! Why this plaintive mood?”
“Am I plaintive? I do not mean to be, I'm sure.”