Then he turned as Mrs. Macdonald came up to him. “What are you doing here alone when I see there is nobody talking to the girl from Winnipeg?” she said.
The man laughed a little. “I was wondering whether it is a good sign, or otherwise, when a young woman is, so far as she can decently be, uncivil to a man who desires her good-will.”
Mrs. Macdonald glanced at him sharply, and then shook her head. “The question is too deep for you—and it is not your affair. Besides, haven’t you seen that indiscreet freedom of speech is not encouraged at Silverdale?”
In the meanwhile Witham, crossing the room, took a vacant place at Maud Barrington’s side. She turned her head a moment and looked at him.
Witham nodded. “Yes, I heard,” he said. “Why did you do it?”
Maud Barrington made a little gesture of impatience. “That is quite unnecessary. You know I sent you.”
“Yes,” said Witham a trifle dryly, “I see. You would have felt mean if you hadn’t defended me.”
“No,” said the girl, with a curious smile. “That was not exactly the reason, but we cannot talk too long here. Dane is anxious to take us home in his new buggy, but it would apparently be a very tight fit for three. Will you drive me over?”
Witham only nodded, for Mrs. Macdonald approached in pursuit of him, but he spent the rest of the evening in a state of expectancy, and Maud Barrington fancied that his hard hands were suspiciously unresponsive as she took them when he helped her into the Silverdale wagon—a vehicle a strong man could have lifted, and in no way resembling its English prototype. The team was mettlesome, the lights of Macdonald’s homestead soon faded behind them, and they were racing with many a lurch and jolt straight as the crow flies across the prairie.
There was no moon, but the stars shone far up in the soft indigo, and the grasses whirled back in endless ripples to the humming wheels, dimmed to the dusky blue that suffused the whole intermerging sweep of earth and sky. The sweetness of wild peppermint rose through the coolness of the dew, and the voices of the wilderness were part of the silence that was but the perfect balance of the nocturnal harmonies. The two who knew and loved the prairie could pick out each one of them. Nor did it seem that there was any need of speech on such a night, but at last Witham turned with a little smile to his companion, as he checked the horses on the slope of a billowy rise.