But he did not seem to be at all disturbed over her manner. On the contrary, looking at him and trying her best to be scornful, he seemed to be laboring heroically to stifle some emotion—amusement, she decided—and she tried to freeze him with an icy stare.
“Now, you don’t look dignified, for a fact,” he grinned, brazenly allowing his mirth to show in his eyes and in the sudden, curved lines that had come around his mouth. “Still, you couldn’t expect to look dignified, no matter how hard you tried, after being dragged through the water like that. Now could you?”
“It isn’t the first time that I have amused you!” she said with angry sarcasm.
A cloud passed over his face, but was instantly superseded by a smile.
“So you haven’t forgotten?” he said.
She did not deign to answer, but turned her back to him and looked at her partially submerged pony.
“Want to try it again?” he said mockingly.
She turned slowly and looked at him, her eyes flashing.
“Will you please stop being silly!” she said coldly. “If you were human you would be trying to get my pony out of that sand instead of standing there and trying to be smart!”
“Did you think that I was going to let him drown?” His smile had in it a quality of subtle mockery which made her eyes blaze with anger. Evidently he observed it for he smiled as he walked to his pony, coiling his rope and hanging it from the pommel of the saddle. “I certainly am not going to let your horse drown,” he assured her, “for in this country horses are sometimes more valuable than people.”