Berrie retained her self-possession. “Come in and get some coffee, and we’ll straighten things out.”
Apparently Mrs. Belden did not know that Cliff and Berrie had quarreled, for she treated the girl with maternal familiarity. She was a good-natured, well-intentioned old sloven, but a most renowned tattler, and the girl feared her more than she feared any other woman in the valley. She had always avoided her, but she showed nothing of this dislike at the moment.
Wayland drew the younger woman’s attention by saying: “It’s plain that you, like myself, do not belong to these parts, Miss Moore.”
“What makes you think so?” she brightly queried.
“Your costume is too appropriate. Haven’t you noticed that the women who live out here carefully avoid convenient and artistic dress? Now your outfit is precisely what they should wear and don’t.”
This amused her. “I know, but they all say they have to wear out their Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, whereas I can ‘rag out proper.’ I’m glad you like my ‘rig.’”
“When I look at you,” he said, “I’m back on old Broadway at the Herald Square Theater. The play is ‘Little Blossom, or the Cowgirl’s Revenge.’ The heroine has just come into the miner’s cabin—”
“Oh, go ’long,” she replied, seizing her cue and speaking in character, “you’re stringin’ me.”
“Not on your life! Your outfit is a peacherino,” he declared. “I am glad you rode by.”
At the moment he was bent on drawing the girl’s attention from Berrie, but as she went on he came to like her. She said: “No, I don’t belong here; but I come out every year during vacation with my father. I love this country. It’s so big and wide and wild. Father has built a little bungalow down at the lower mill, and we enjoy every day of our stay.”