"But you can't walk there. You must have gotten off at the wrong station; it is quite a mile, even across the fields."
"And what is a mile, sir? Have you forgotten that I am a country girl?" and she smiled up at him brightly, with a look that challenged remembrance.
"I remember that you could walk with any of us," said Edgar, thinking how the freckles had disappeared from Polly's rose-leaf skin, and how particularly fetching she looked in her brown felt sailor-hat. "Well, if you really wish to go there, I 'll see you safely to the house and take you over to San Francisco afterward, as it will be almost dark. I was going over, at any rate, and one train earlier or later won't make any difference."
("Perhaps it won't and perhaps it will," thought Polly.) "If you are sure it won't be too much trouble, then"--
"Not a bit. Excuse me a moment while I run back and explain the matter to the boys."
The boys did not require any elaborate explanation.
Oh, the power of a winsome face! No better than many other good things, but surely one of them, and when it is united to a fair amount of goodness, something to be devoutly thankful for. It is to be feared that if a lumpish, dumpish sort of girl (good as gold, you know, but not suitable for occasions when a fellow's will has to be caught "on the fly," and held until it settles to its work),--if that lumpish, dumpish girl had asked the way to Professor Salazar's house, Edgar Noble would have led her courteously to the turn of the road, lifted his hat, and wished her a pleasant journey.
But Polly was wearing her Sunday dress of brown cloth and a jaunty jacket trimmed with sable (the best bits of an old pelisse of Mrs. Oliver's). The sun shone on the loose-dropping coil of the waving hair that was only caught in place by a tortoise-shell arrow; the wind blew some of the dazzling tendrils across her forehead; the eyes that glanced up from under her smart little sailor-hat were as blue as sapphires; and Edgar, as he looked, suddenly feared that there might be vicious bulls in the meadows, and did n't dare as a gentleman to trust Polly alone! He had n't remembered anything special about her, but after an interval of two years she seemed all at once as desirable as dinner, as tempting as the minstrels, almost as fascinating as the billiards, when one has just money enough in one's pocket for one's last week's bills and none at all for the next!
The boys, as I say, had imagined Edgar's probable process of reasoning. Polly was standing in the highroad where "a wayfaring man, though a fool," could look at her; and when Edgar explained that it was his duty to see her safely to her destination, they all bowed to the inevitable. The one called Tony even said that he would be glad to "swap" with him, and the whole party offered to support him in his escort duty if he said the word. He agreed to meet the boys later, as Polly's quick ear assured her, and having behaved both as a man of honor and knight of chivalry, he started unsuspectingly across the fields with his would-be guardian.
She darted a searching look at him as they walked along.