His eyes were still languid, his gaze still on the rim of distant hills.
"You got any love talk in there—between the man an' the girl?" he questioned.
"Of course."
"That's mighty interestin'," he returned. "I expect they do a good bit of mushin'?"
"They do not talk extravagantly," she defended.
"Then I expect it must be pretty good," he returned. "I don't like mushy love stories." And now he turned and looked fairly at her. "Of course," he said slyly, "I don't know whether it's necessary or not, but I've been thinkin' that to write a good love story the writer ought to be in love. Whoever was writin' would know more about how it feels to be in love."
She admired the cleverness with which he had led her up to this point, but she was not to be trapped. She met his eyes fairly.
"I am sure it is not necessary for the writer to be in love," she said quietly but positively. "I flatter myself that my love scenes are rather real, and I have not found it necessary to love anyone."
This reply crippled him instantly. "Well, now," he said, eyeing her, she thought, a bit reproachfully, "that comes pretty near stumpin' me. But," he added, a subtle expression coming again into his eyes, "you say you've got only two-thirds finished. Mebbe you'll be in love before you get it all done. An' then mebbe you'll find that you didn't get it right an' have to do it all over again. That would sure be too bad, when you could have got in love an' wrote it real in the first place."
"I don't think that I shall fall in love," she said laughing.