“No?” said Hetty, still graciously. “Not even when I ask you?”
Grant shook his head. “They have my word, and you wouldn’t like me to go back upon what I feel is right,” he said.
Hetty laughed. “If you will think a little, you can’t help seeing that you are very wrong.”
Again the little weary smile crept into Grant’s face. “One naturally thinks a good deal before starting in with this kind of thing, and I have to go through. I can’t stop now, even to please you. But can’t we still be friends?”
For a moment there was astonishment in the girl’s face, then it flushed, and as her lips hardened and every line in her slight figure seemed to grow rigid, she reminded Miss Schuyler of the autocrat of Cedar Range.
“You ask me that?” she said. “You, an American, turning Dutchmen and these bush-choppers loose upon the people you belong to. Can’t you see what the answer must be?”
Grant did apparently, for he mutely bent his head; but there was a shout just then, and when one of the vedettes on the skyline suddenly moved forward he seized Miss Torrance’s bridle and wheeled her horse.
“Ride back to the Range,” he said sharply, “as straight as you can. Tell your father that you met me. Let your horse go, Miss Schuyler.”
As he spoke he brought his hand down upon the beast’s flank and it went forward with a bound. The one Flora Schuyler rode flung up its head, and in another moment they were sweeping at a gallop across the prairie. A mile had been left behind before Hetty could pull her half-broken horse up; but the struggle that taxed every sinew had been beneficial, and she laughed a trifle breathlessly.
“I’m afraid I lost my temper; and I’m angry yet,” she said. “It’s the first time Larry wouldn’t do what I asked him, and it was mean of him to send us off like that, just when one wanted to put on all one’s dignity.”