"I can!" She turned a curious face toward him. "I'm a perfect wonder at keeping secrets. I love 'em so I just can't give them away. Do tell me one!"
"I hate to be told how wonderful I am when I haven't been wonderful at all," he said honestly. "So I'll confess that Mr. Simmons asked me to bring you and Granny and Joan home."
"He did?" Rebecca Mary couldn't believe it. She visualized the caution with which Granny had slipped from bush to bush, how stealthily she had crept to the gate. And there had been no need of caution. How old Peter Simmons could tease Granny now! By running away from his teasing she had only given him more material with which to tease her. "She'll be furious," she said, not sure but she was a little furious herself.
"She must never know." Richard reminded her that what he had given her was a secret. "Mr. Simmons said if Granny could slip out of Riverside and get home before he did she would think she was getting the better of him and be a lot happier."
"The dear old man," breathed Rebecca Mary, forming a new opinion of old Peter Simmons instantly. "What next?"
"And he asked me to bring her to Waloo. That's all, but you see you can't pin any cross on me. I was just obeying orders. I thought you would enjoy the joke, but we won't tell Granny. Let her think that she did get ahead of Mr. Simmons."
"I should say so. That dear old Peter Simmons to let Granny retreat with honor! He's not such a bad sort if he does forget his anniversaries and presents and things. Dear me, how long ago it seems since we ran away from here! Otillie Swenson must be an old married woman by now."
"I don't suppose you thought of me once while you were at Riverside," Richard said jealously.
"Well," a perverse imp appeared in Rebecca Mary's cheek just above the corner of her lip, and there was a perverse imp in her voice, also, "I was rather busy you know. I was the only girl there and four, no, five, men, for old Major Martingale had to have a word now and then, five men in the hand didn't leave much time for one in——"
"The heart," suggested Richard quickly and eagerly, and he dropped into the swing beside her. "If you tell me you kept me in your heart, Rebecca Mary, I shan't mind how many men there were in your hand?"