“Only in my self-esteem,” he confessed. “I was silly enough to think that somebody was trying to mark me down, though I might have known better after the first shot or two.”
“But how could you know when you were behind the tree and couldn’t see us?” protested the one who had been doing the shooting. “I’m sure it speaks libraries for your self-control that you didn’t retaliate in kind! Don’t you think so, Madame Fortier?” and she appealed to the lady with the Gallic eyebrows and the eloquent shoulders.
“Ciel! but the sangfroid—what you call the cold blood—of these American zhentlemen is of a grandeur the moz’ magnificent!” exclaimed madame. “Mees Richardia she is shoot a hondred time at zis zhentleman, and he is say he is injure’ onlee in hees amour-propre!”
It was at this point that the humor of the situation overtook the chief offender, and she laughed, the sweetest and most delectable laugh that ever gladdened the ears of a young man keenly sensitive to the charms of heavenly slate-blue eyes, a piquant face, and a voice remindful of wood-thrushes and song-sparrows and golden-throated warblers.
“After this, there is nothing left for us but to declare ourselves,” she submitted ruefully, turning to the spectacled escort. “It is the least we can do to save the gentleman the trouble of describing us if he wishes to have us taken before Squire Prigmore.”
But now Tregarvon was regaining some measure of equanimity.
“Let me be the one to begin the identifying process,” he amended. “My name is Vance Tregarvon, and I have the misfortune to be the present owner of the valueless piece of property known as the Ocoee Mine. You are more than welcome to make a rifle-range of my landscape any time you wish. I am quite certain it is the only useful purpose it has ever subserved.”
The gentleman whose coat was either clerical or schoolmasterish, bowed gravely and took his turn, prefacing it with a question.
“Have you ever heard of Highmount College for Young Women, Mr. Tregarvon?”
Tregarvon, in deference to piquancies and slate-blue eyes and the like, was tempted to quibble and say that, of course, every one knew of Highmount College. But the heavenly eyes were holding him, and they promised intolerance of anything but the pellucid truth. So he shook his head regretfully.