"Then give me your arm again," she said, "and let me tell you that I'm very much surprised at you for requiring to be told that twice."
"I'm not accustomed to ladies," Engelhardt explained once more.
"That's all right. I'm not one, you know. I'm going to negotiate this fence. Will you have the goodness to turn your back?"
Engelhardt did so, and saw afar off in the moonlit veranda the lowering solitary figure of the manager, Gilroy.
"Yes, he sees us all right," Miss Pryse remarked from the other side of the fence. "It'll do him good. Come you over, and we'll make his beard curl!"
The piano-tuner looked at her doubtfully, but only for one moment. The next he also was over the fence and by her side, and she was leading him into the heart of the pines, her strong kind hand within his arm.
"We'll just have a little mouch round," she said, confidentially. "You needn't be frightened."
"Frightened!" he echoed, defiantly. The hosts of darkness could not have frightened such a voice.
"You see, I'm the boss, and I'm obliged to show it sometimes."
"I see."