Harley Greenoak laughed deprecatorily. This formula was so frequent wherever he went that it had become stereotyped. As a rule it annoyed him; now, however, it was hard to connect such a word with the owner of that sparkling face, of the wide, lustrous, almost admiring eyes turned upon his own.
“One can’t spin yarns to order,” he said. “If something suggests one, out it comes—or doesn’t.”
Chapter Ten.
Drift.
She made no answer, at first. They were in shade now, and she had flung off her sun-bonnet, and her glance was turned forth upon the wide veldt lying beneath, while the light breeze stirred the little escaped rings of her dark hair. No wonder he had found it difficult to get his charge away from Haakdoornfontein, thought the only spectator. The thought was quickly followed by another. Was he so unaffectedly anxious to get away from it himself? Well, why should he be? This bright, beautiful child had brought such sunshine into their daily life, why should he not enjoy his share of it simply because he was no longer young? Harley Greenoak had a strong sense of the ridiculous. Now he saw himself, rough, middle-aged, rapidly turning grey, and secretly he laughed; but it was a laugh not altogether free from wistfulness.
“What an experience yours must have been!” she went on. “I suppose you can’t even count the number of people whose lives you have saved?”
“I never tried—er—and excuse me, Miss Brandon, but—you didn’t bring me up here to make me brag, did you?”
“To make you brag?” she repeated. “That would be a feat—one that I don’t believe any one ever accomplished yet.”