“I am going to Mexico on a prospecting trip for silver. I promised some friends of mine long ago that I would join their expedition. I shall be gone all winter. I can’t take you with me, and I don’t wish you to be alone at Manaña. It’s lucky I can pack you off to Hamilton again. Such a strain off my mind,” he ended teasingly.
“You are a sham,” Ronny set the box of cherries on the ground. Her arms went round her father’s neck. She placed a playful hand to his lips. “Not another word. You know you only think I want to go East again. So you have joined——”
“Well, don’t you?” her father tenderly demanded.
“Not more than to stay here with you,” she answered honestly.
“But how can you stay here with me when I shan’t be here? You aren’t going to say I can’t go to Mexico, are you?” he put on an expression of blank disappointment.
“Can you say on your word of honor that you aren’t going away on my account?” Ronny countered severely.
“You haven’t answered my questions yet,” came the laughing evasion. “Besides you took me so by surprise that I forgot I had two letters for Marjorie.”
Mr. Lynne reached into a pocket of his tweed riding coat and drew forth two envelopes. One was square and pale gray. The other was square and white. Sight of it sent two happy color signals flying to Marjorie’s cheeks. Hal’s familiar hand on the white square made her heart beat faster. Quickly she laid the gray envelope over it, striving to keep her lovely face from indexing her love for Hal. She bent purposely wrinkled brows over the gray envelope. It bore a San Francisco postmark. The writing on it seemed oddly familiar, yet she could not place it. So far as she knew she had neither acquaintances nor friends in San Francisco. She courteously tucked both letters into a coat pocket and again turned her attention to the merry little tilt still going on between Ronny and her father.
“I’ll confess, if you will,” Mr. Lynne was saying. “But you first.”
“Confess what?” Ronny put on a non-comprehending air.