"Then Macdonald will keep your team, and I will drive you home," said Winston. "Mine are the best horses at Silverdale, and I fancy we will need all their strength."
Miss Barrington looked up sharply. There had been a little ring in Winston's voice, but there was also a solicitude in his face which almost astonished her, and when Macdonald urged her to comply she rose leisurely.
"I will be ready in ten minutes," she said.
Winston waited at least twenty, very impatiently, but when at last the girl appeared, handed her with quiet deference into the sleigh, and then took his place, as far as the dimensions of the vehicle permitted, apart from her. Once he fancied she noticed it with faint amusement, but the horses knew what was coming, and it was only when he pulled them up to a trot again on the slope of a rise that he found speech convenient.
"I am glad we are alone, though I feel a little diffidence in asking a favor of you because unfortunately when I venture to recommend anything you usually set yourself against it," he said. "This is, in the language of this country, tolerably straight."
Maud Barrington laughed. "I could find no fault with it on the score of ambiguity."
"Well," said Winston, "I believe your uncle is going to sell wheat for you, and let a good deal of your land go out of cultivation. Now, as you perhaps do not know, the laws which govern the markets are very simple and almost immutable, but the trouble is that a good many people do not understand their application."
"You apparently consider yourself an exception," said the girl.
Winston nodded. "I do just now. Still, I do not wish to talk about myself. You see, the people back there in Europe must be fed, and the latest news from wheat-growing countries does not promise more than an average crop, while half the faint-hearted farmers here are not going to sow much this year. Therefore when the demand comes for Western wheat there will be little to sell."
"But how is it that you alone see this? Isn't it a trifle egotistical?"