“Then he’d better quit right now—you can tell him.” Kate’s voice was curt, incisive, her tone final. “He can’t use a dog on these Rambouillets—they’re high-strung, nervous, different from the merinos. Anyway, I won’t have it.” She swung about to indicate that the conversation was ended.
“That’s all Greek to me. Do you understand it, Hugh?” Miss Rathburn’s lofty drawl, her faintly patronizing manner, all indicated amusement.
“I don’t know much about sheep,” he admitted.
“Do you know—” to Kate, with all her social manner—“you are deliciously unique?”
Kate, who detected the sneer, but had no social manner to meet it, asked brusquely:
“In what way?”
“You’re so—” she hesitated for a word and seemed to search her vocabulary for the right one—“so strong-minded.”
Kate’s eyes were sparkling.
“If by that you mean intelligent, I thank you for the compliment, and I’m sorry that I can’t—” She checked herself, but the inference was clear that she intended to add—“return it.”
Miss Rathburn’s fair skin became a deeper pink than even a pink-lined parasol warranted, while Kate addressed herself to Disston exclusively.