"No. Why should I be?"
"That's what I want to know. You don't like me, little lady, is that it?"
"I neither like nor dislike you. I don't think of you."
She immediately regretted the words. She was so completely a woman, so dowered with the instinct of attraction, that she realized they were not the words of indifference.
"My thoughts are full of other people," she said hastily, trying to amend the mistake, and that was spoiled by a rush of color that suddenly dyed her face.
She looked over the horse's head, her anger now turned upon herself. The man made no answer, but she knew that he was watching her. They paced on for a silent moment then he said:
"Why are you blushing?"
"I am not," she cried, feeling the color deepening.
"You've told two lies," he answered. "You said you weren't angry, and you're mad all through, and now you say you're not blushing, and your face is as pink as one of those little flat roses that grow on the prairie. It's all right to get mad and blush, but I'd like to know why you do it. I made you mad someway or other, I don't know how. Have I made you blush, too?" he leaned nearer trying to look at her. "How'd I do that?"
She had a sidelong glimpse of his face, quizzical, astonished, full of piqued interest. She struggled with the mortification of a petted child, suddenly confronted by a stranger who finds its caprices only ridiculous and displeasing. Under the new sting of humiliation she writhed, burning to retaliate and make him see the height of her pedestal.