Barbara was silent, and felt the shy, care-taking glance of her maid. Garnet spoke again, in the guarded tone she knew so well.
"I reckon you understand he's only coming to see if he'll take stock in this land company we're getting up, don't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Doe he know you're going to spend these two weeks at Halliday's before you go North?"
"I think he does."
The questioner turned enough to make a show of frowning solicitude. "What's the matter with you this morning? sad at the thought of leaving home?"
"No, sir"—the speaker smiled meditatively—"we only don't hit on a subject of interest to both."
The father faced to front again and urged the horses. He even raised the whip, but let it droop. Then he turned sharply and drew his daughter's glance. "Is Fair going to stay with John March?"
They sat gaze to gaze while their common blood surged up to his brows and more gradually suffused her face. Without the stir of an eyelash she let her lips part enough to murmur, "Yes."
Before her word was finished Garnet's retort was bursting from him, "Thanks to you, you intermeddling——" He was cut short by the lurch of the carriage into a hole. It flounced him into the seat from which he had half started and faced him to the horses. With a smothered imprecation he rose and laid on the whip. They plunged, the carriage sprang from the hole and ploughed the mire, and Garnet sat down and drove into the town's main avenue, bespattered with mud from head to waist.