"Faint heart," scoffed Rosalie.
"All right, I am game. Suppose you drive a while." Turning to Doris, he said, "Rosalie is going to drive a while, and I am coming back to help hold down the back seat. Don't argue. You know very well the back seat is too bumpy for one little light girl by herself. You need not hurry, Rosalie," he said, surrendering the wheel. "Doris is cross, and I have to reason with her. It takes time. You need not listen unless you particularly wish."
He got into the back seat serenely enough, and looked astonished when Doris withdrew to the farthest corner of the roomy seat.
"What is the matter? Does the seat slope over to that corner? That is a shame, I must have it fixed." And he sat down very comfortably in the middle of the seat, where Doris could not possibly keep the hem of her gown from touching him, nor even her rigid elbow, though it plainly was her desire.
Rosalie drove with a nicety of concentration that was most commendable, but Doris was stiffly mute to his overtures. And in spite of his persistent and determined tender chaffing, he was really calling down anathemas on the head of the offending bishop by the time they reached Aurora.
"Let's find a place to eat. I am hungry. I have done a hard day's work. Digging ditches has nothing on that," he said to Rosalie.
She nodded sympathetically. "Think well before it is too late," she warned. "Women are always like that—they go by spells. Sometimes they are and then sometimes they are not."
"Chiefly they are not, I perceive," he said doggedly. "She liked me well enough while I remained a mystery."
"Well, of course—"