"You've never even tried," said Bunny.
He was plainly in an exacting mood. Her heart sank a little lower. "It's no use trying, darling," she said. "I know I can't. But I won't take a minute longer over it than I can help."
"You never do anything decently," said Bunny in disgust.
Maud made no rejoinder. She bent in silence to her task.
Bunny could not see her face, and she strove desperately to control her panting breath.
"You puff like a grampus," the boy said discontentedly.
There came the quick fall of a horse's hoofs behind them, and Maud bent her flushed face a little lower. She did not want to meet that piercing regard again. But the hoof-beats slackened behind her, and a voice spoke--a voice so curiously soft that at the first sound she almost believed it to be that of a woman.
"Say! That's too heavy a job for you."
She paused--it was inevitable--and looked round.
In the same moment he slid to the ground--a square, sturdy figure, shorter than she had imagined him when he was in the saddle, horsey of aspect, clumsy of build, possessing a breadth of chest that seemed to indicate vast strength.