What in the world had he ever done to make me in love with him?
That first time at the hut he had been hideously rude to me; had come up to me and, unintroduced, had asked me how long I thought I was going to stick life in the Land Army!
I remembered his smile as he said it.
Then that next time in the cowshed. He'd come upon me in the act of chucking work, and he'd let me know that he knew it. Then he'd laid down the law to me about the way to "muck out," as the country phrase has it, the way to hold a pitchfork, and the way to trundle a barrow up to the manure-heap. Nothing in that to make a girl take any sort of a fancy to him!
Later on, he had informed me that I should make a rotten poor hen-wife, just because I'd forgotten the milk for the chickens' food! Not very endearing, that remark!
That same afternoon, however, he had been friendly. He'd walked back with me, talking all the way. But what about? His own love affair. The problem of the girl to whom he had proposed, and who had said neither "yes" nor "no" to him. And I—not realizing that I was getting too fond of the sound of his voice whatever it happened to be saying—I had asked him what sort of a girl she was. He'd said the words that had been ringing in my head ever since: "Ah, well! She's just the girl I want."
* * * * * * *
And now here she was; I saw her before me, the beautiful Spanish-clad singer, on this very concert platform, not more than arms' length from him.
I found myself simply hating her! The last words of her song—oh! how that tune of "Carissima" was going to haunt me—melted away. Muriel played the last chord, and again the racket of applause broke out.
She smiled with all her white teeth; she bowed, gracefully enough but put her hand with a curious little jerk to her side as she did so.