Packard lighted his cigarette and returned her look steadily.
"Kid of a girl, nothing!" he told himself. And going back to his epithet of yesterday, "Little wildcat."
"Then," continued the girl evenly, taking up the conversation where it had broken down some time ago, "I'll say what I've got to say. First, because you're a Packard. Next, because it was pretty slick work, that stunt of yours, diving into the lake for me, pretending you didn't know who I was, and grabbing the first chance to get acquainted. Much good it'll do you! Maybe I haven't been through high school and you have fussed around at college; just the same, Mr. Steve Packard, Terry Temple's not your fool or any other man's! And, on top of all of your other nerve, to try and make me think you didn't know you owned your own ranch! And trying to pump me and corkscrewing away at dad when he was full of whiskey.… Pah! Your kind of he-animal makes me sick."
"You think," he offered stiffly, "that I'm hand and glove with Blenham? And, perhaps, that I'm taking orders from my grandfather, trying to put one over on you?"
"Thinking's not the right word," she corrected sharply. "I know."
He shrugged. As he did so it struck him that there was nothing else for him to do. She had the trick of utter finality.
"And," she called after him as he turned abruptly to leave the room, "you can tell old Hell Fire for me that maybe he's got the big bulge on the situation right now but that it's bad luck to count your chips until the game is over. There's a come-back left in dad yet, and … and if you or your hell-roaring old granddad think you can swallow the Temple outfit whole, like you've done a lot of other outfits …"
Packard went out and slammed the door after him.
"Damn the girl!" he muttered angrily.
Terry, sitting on the table, grew very still, ceased the swinging of her feet, and turned to peek cautiously out at him from the kitchen window. Her look was utterly joyous.