“You’ve got me there,” she laughed. “But you were so absorbed that you don’t seem to have noticed that the shade has gone off this side of the shed long ago. Why, the sun’s coming down full upon you.”
“Is it? Why, so it is,” he said, rising. “I suppose I didn’t notice it because I’m so used to it. Lovely morning though.”
“Isn’t it? Well, I want you to do me a favour, Mr Greenoak. Will you?”
“Certainly. I shall be delighted.”
“But you don’t know what it is yet.”
“I know that you would not ask me, or anybody, to do what is absurd or impossible.”
“Thanks, that’s quite pretty, really it is. I thought you up-country men never went in for making compliments.”
“Mayn’t we tell the truth? That is only straightforwardness, you know.”
“There is another compliment,” laughed the girl. “Why, Mr Selmes himself could hardly go on piling them up like that.”
“Ah, he’s young. They come more naturally from him, like the difference between the roll of a well-greased waggon wheel and that of a creaking one,” rejoined Greenoak, with a good-natured smile.