“That’s very kind,” he said, genuinely grateful, “but I didn’t mean that I find it tiresome at all. You see it’s different when you’ve always been a farmer yourself, and I’d like to go back to real practical farming on a place of my own.”
“Yes?” she inquired, beginning to get his viewpoint. “I know a girl friend of mine—and they’re very nice people—they have a farm that they live on the year round, and all summer her father wears a white suit and goes right out among the men.”
Then Billy must have touched something, for the car shot out suddenly, and they didn’t discuss things agricultural any more. He had about decided that the case was hopeless.
The lights were still bright in the house when they drove up, but she led him around to a side door opening into her own little sitting-room. Someone had just kindled a fire on the hearth, and slipping out of her coat she dropped down on a stool. Billy looked down at her with a tenderness that he wouldn’t have dared to let her see, then his eyes wandered to a few of the room’s features that clamored for attention.
It was decidedly a girl’s sanctum. The one soft-shaded light was turned low, but the flickering blaze from the fire showed the walls gay with pennants. On the mantel, the little French writing-desk, and here and there in odd spaces on the walls were photographs; she seemed to have a preference for college graduates in gown and sheep-skin and the smiling assurance that usually goes with a degree before experience has tested its infallibility as a talisman. On a table in the centre of the room, a vase of tall American Beauties served, no doubt, to keep green the memory of some very ardent or wealthy admirer.
A less prejudiced person might have seen in the collection of trophies something in common with the scalps decorating the walls of an Indian tepee, but to Billy it only emphasized his infinitesimal place in her world. There was something very sober and kind in his eyes when they came back again to the thoughtful face with its starry eyes and childish, pursed-up mouth and
the mysterious touch that comes from the glow and shadows of the firelight. He thought how sweet and becoming this seriousness was, compared with her lighter, irresponsible moods, and he looked ahead to the time when life would have taught her more of its meaning. Then the little Swiss clock chimed out twelve and he came to apologetically.
“When may I see you again?” he asked.
She drew her brows together and counted on her fingers a list of engagements for a week.
“You’d better call me up,” she said. “I’m never sure of what I want to do for a day ahead.”