“It beats the Dutch, Steve. I can't think what was the matter. There wasn't a thing I did or a word I said to make her behave so.”
Steve was softly poking the fire from above. The night was quite cool for June.
“No, there was not,” Randolph reaffirmed. “I've gone over the whole day again and again. I didn't give her the least excuse. What do you suppose was the matter with her?”
Steve looked up with an almost startled air.
“Oh, I'm sure I can't say. They're quite beyond me.”
“They're beyond every one,” said Randolph in the tone of a Supreme Court judge. “I don't see what the Lord made them for.”
Steve looked up again and there was the least suspicion of a twinkle in his eye.
“How is it,” he asked in his gentle way—“how many of them is it you are prepared to manage?”
Randolph brought his chair down on its four legs.
“Not a confounded one!” he said.