“A pleasant way to do it, Mr. Merriman. My name is Coburn. You see I am trying to change the face of the country here?”
“Yes, Miss”—Merriman hesitated for a moment and looked at the girl—“Miss Coburn told me what you were doing. A splendid notion, I think.”
“Yes, I think we are going to make it pay very well. I suppose you’re not making a long stay?”
“Two days in Bordeaux, sir, then I’m off east to Avignon.”
“Do you know, I rather envy you. One gets tired of these tree trunks and the noise of the saws. Ah, there is your petrol.” A workman had appeared with a red can of Shell. “Well, Mr. Merriman, a pleasant journey to you. You will excuse my not going farther with you, but I am really supposed to be busy.” He turned to his daughter with a smile. “You, Madeleine, can see Mr. Merriman to the road?”
He shook hands, declined Merriman’s request to be allowed to pay for the petrol and, cutting short the other’s thanks with a wave of his arm, turned back to the shed.
The two young people strolled slowly back across the clearing, the girl evidently disposed to make the most of the unwonted companionship, and Merriman no less ready to prolong so delightful an interview. But in spite of the pleasure of their conversation, he could not banish from his mind the little incident which had taken place, and he determined to ask a discreet question or two about it.
“I say,” he said, during a pause in their talk, “I’m afraid I upset your lorry man somehow. Did you notice the way he looked at me?”
The girl’s manner, which up to this had been easy and careless, changed suddenly, becoming constrained and a trifle self-conscious. But she answered readily enough.
“Yes, I saw it. But you must not mind Henri. He was badly shell-shocked, you know, and he has never been the same since.”