"Yes," she answered, "my name is Louise."
"How should you have liked it," he inquired, absent-mindedly, "if it had been Louisiana?"
She answered him with a hard coolness which it startled him afterward to remember.
"How would you have liked it?" she said.
They were driven back just then by the rain, which began to beat in upon their end of the porch. They were obliged to return to Olivia and Mr. Rogers, who were engaged in an animated conversation.
The fact was that, in her momentary excitement, Olivia had plunged into conversation as a refuge. She had suddenly poured forth a stream of remark and query which had the effect of spurring up her companion to a like exhibition of frankness. He had been asking questions, too.
"She's ben tellin' me," he said, as Ferrol approached, "thet you're a littery man, an' write fur the papers—novel-stories, an' pomes an' things. I never seen one before—not as I know on."
"I wonder why not!" remarked Ferrol. "We are plentiful enough."
"Air ye now?" he asked reflectively. "I had an idee thar was only one on ye now an' ag'in—jest now an' ag'in."
He paused there to shake his head.