So far as Janet could see, he considered it the most natural meeting in the world. Jonas Hicks, fortunately, was not easily confused. She lost no time, however, in beginning her explanation.
"You see, Mr. Hicks, I was going on horse-back from Wanger's farm up to the county-seat to take the examination, and just as I was passing here—"
Poor Janet; she had to tell that whole story over again. She told it with particular attention to plausible detail; she wanted him to have a perfect understanding of just how it was.
"Oh, yes—just so—I see," he would say promptly. "You just got lost on the prairie. And you 've been stopping a few days with Steve."
As if it were nothing! Such ready belief and general inconsequentiality bothered Janet. She did not know, of course, that Jonas was hardly the sort of a Texan to feel comfortable in having a woman stand before him in the defensive, stating her case. Upon her first appearance he had concealed his surprise and rallied nobly to the courtesies of the occasion; it was sufficient that he was in the presence of the fair. Having heard enough to get the facts of her adventure and grasp her present situation, it was hardly in him to play the part of the unconvinced and give her a hearing through the corroborating details—it was too inquisitorial for him. Suspicion? He would have felt vitally impeached. He could not stand judicially; he would have knocked down the man that did it. For this reason, while he manifested sufficient interest, he escaped from his position by finding casual employment; he examined the skillet, looked into the provision box, and presently set about getting his supper, which, he insisted, he was perfectly capable of doing. Janet persevered with her story. He kept up his interest, making a mere anecdote out of her tale and mitigating the atmosphere with the sound of pots and kettles.
"Well, now; if that don't beat all—— Naturally—— Just what would happen—" Such was the tenor of his remarks. As if nothing more need really be said.
To Janet, his too ready acceptance was peculiarly unsatisfying.
"And then," he remarked, just as she was coming to it, "I bet you walked right round in a circle."
She wished most heartily that she could have replied, "Oh, no," and explained that that was n't the way of it at all. She felt that her whole story must seem to him an easily concocted, and a merely necessary fiction. But as that was exactly what did happen she had to accept this part of it from him and do her best with other details. She wished he would pay more strict attention.
"And so," she finally ended, "as Mr. Brown went away just a while ago to get my horse, I was rather frightened when I heard somebody coming. I suppose I surprised you too."