"Steve! What—what rank melodrama! Are you qualifying for the movies?" she essayed a nonchalant tone which to her hypercritical senses seemed horribly frightened. "What—what do you want?"
"That door open. Nothing else—now," Courtlandt answered as he dropped her hands and turned away.
CHAPTER XXI
"What shall we do this afternoon, Jerry?" Peggy Glamorgan asked as she, her sister and Benson sat at luncheon three hours later. The table was spread on the broad, shadowy veranda on the north side of the ranch-house. The sun beat down upon fields and white roads; insects droned lazily to the accompaniment of the faint roar of the stream swollen by the heavy rain of the night before. "Ye gods! If here isn't Abdul the Great," she mocked saucily as Courtlandt appeared at the door. "Are his humble slaves to be honored with his presence at the noonday meal? Allah, oh Allah! Jerry, aren't you overwhelmed at this tribute to our charms?"
"Can't a man lunch beneath his own vine and fig tree without creating a panic? From now on I shall make it a daily rite that you may get used to it," Steve laughed. He laid his hand on Benson's shoulder. "Tommy, you're a hero. Slippy Bend is agog with admiration. What the populace can't think of to say in praise of you the deputy sheriff supplies in the most colorful vernacular the locality produces. Don't run; I won't say any more," as Benson, fiery red, half rose from his chair. Steve seated himself opposite Jerry.
She observed him resentfully from behind a screen of lashes. He looked more care-free and debonair than she had ever seen him while her heart still contracted suffocatingly at any thought of the morning. It was just like a man, nothing went deep, she thought. Ming Soy fluttered about in devoted anticipation of his needs; Peggy poured cream into his tea with a lavish hand. Benson laughed.
"You're a master tactician, old dear. You let your light shine upon us but seldom and behold the devotion when you do appear. Alas, 'Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare.' I'll say your beatific expression would put the twinkle-twinkle-little-star effect out of business. Got a load off your mind, haven't you? Slowman tells me that the Shorthorns are back to a hoof, that our temperamental late manager is being securely, if not luxuriously accommodated with quarters in the jail and that—that Mrs. Denbigh is en route to the effete East via Slippy Bend. Is my information correct?" He stole a surreptitious glance at Jerry who, with the aid of a pink-tipped finger, was nonchalantly sailing rose petal boats on the sea of her crystal finger-bowl.
"It is. The tangle of the last few months is straightening out. From now on I'll subscribe to that bit of philosophy of Doc Rand's, 'Things have a marvelous, unbelievable way of coming right.' The late unpleasantness has resulted in one thing: we have an all-American outfit on the Double O ranch on whose honor I'd stake my last dollar. They may come of varied and contending races but when it comes to ideals of service and loyalty to the nation, they're united. Next week I'm going to Uncle Nick's camp in the mountains to inspect the silver mine, and incidentally to fish. There is a lake there where the trout are so thick they form bread-lines to get a chance at the bait."
"You tell 'em!" jeered Benson.