“You’re afraid I haven’t got it in me to learn––you don’t want to waste time on me!” Joan spoke with a sad bitterness, as one who saw another illusion fading before her eyes.
“Not that,” he hastened to assure her, putting out his hand as if to add the comfort of his touch to the salve of his words. “I’m only afraid your father wouldn’t have anything to do with me if you were to approach him with any such proposal. From what I’ve heard of him he’s a man who likes a fellow to do his own talking.”
“I don’t think he’d refuse me.”
“It’s hard for a stranger to do that. Your father–––”
“You’ll not do it, you mean?”
“I think I’d rather get a job from your father on my own face than on any kind of an arrangement or condition, Miss Sullivan. But I pass you my word that you’ll be welcome to anything and all I’m able to teach you if I become a pupil in the sheep business on this range. Provided, of course, that I’m in reaching distance.”
“Will you?” Joan asked, hope clearing the shadows from her face again.
“But we might be too far apart for lessons very often,” he suggested.