"I don't know!" I barked in return.
Staring at the now abating rain, I suggested sharply: "Perhaps you laugh at me for being on land work at all?"
Captain Holiday turned, looked hard at me. I thought he would snap again. Instead of that he replied gently.
"Land work? Honestly I think it's the noblest work women can do today."
He glanced at the hayfield, cleared only that afternoon, gleaming under the rain.
"Cramped occupations, unhealthy city life, flat chests, specialists' fees—all swept away!" he said musingly. "Land work would help us to that, you know. Land work would give us rosier wives, better babies"—then he turned upon me with his abruptest question—"I suppose you think it's odd of me to think of such things?"
"Certainly not. I agree with every word you say," I assured him. "Only——"
I was thinking of Muriel. Land work and she were as the poles apart, yet he loved her (or so I was driven to suppose). And yet he clung to his ideals of a country life!
"Only—what?" he took me up. "What were you going to say?"
"That girl you spoke to me about the other evening," I said, "that girl who won't say either 'Yes' or 'No' to you—'the' girl—what does she think about all this?"