On the whole, her thoughts were far from pleasant, and in addition to this the temperature, which was a good deal higher than usual, had a depressing effect on her. There was no breeze that afternoon, and the air was still and heavy; the white prairie flung back a trying light, even on to the shaded veranda, and she felt restless, captious and irritable. At length, however, she took up a book and endeavored to become engrossed in it. She so far succeeded that she did not hear a buggy drive up, and it was with a start that she straightened herself in her chair as Nevis walked quietly on to the veranda.
"I never expected you!" she exclaimed.
The man smiled in a deprecatory fashion.
"I heard at the station that you arrived yesterday."
Florence frowned at this. The inference was too obvious; he evidently wished to imply that it would have been unnatural had he delayed his visit.
"Well," she said, "you startled me. Do you generally walk into places that way—like a pickpocket?"
Nevis laughed, and when he sat down rather close to her, uninvited, she favored him with a gaze of careful and undisguised scrutiny. Florence could be openly rude upon occasion, and though his visits hitherto had afforded her some satisfaction, she now felt that she would have been better pleased had he stayed away. He was, as usual, tastefully dressed; there was no doubt that his clothes became him; but somehow it struck her that, although she had not realized this earlier, the man looked cheap, which on consideration seemed the best word for it.
"I suppose you enjoyed yourself while you were away?" he began.
"No," replied Florence; "on the whole, I don't think I did."
She broke off and added irritably: