She looked at me, brushed her disordered hair back from her eyes, attempted to speak, and failing, dropped her head forward against the horse’s neck and stood with face hidden.
“I came as soon as I could,” I continued, brooding above the wonderful bent head with its heavy ringlets of hair.
A sound unintelligible answered me. I sat there awkwardly, scarcely knowing what was expected of me. Presently she moved, looked up at me, and smiled. Her purple-black eyes were dewy. Standing there in her jaunty cape and short skirt, with her opulent hair unbound and sweeping her shoulders, she might have been a timid schoolgirl; and suddenly I lost my awe of her, though my admiration deepened.
“Were you alone through all that brute of a storm?”
“Yes.”
I got off my horse, and she took the bridle from my hand.
“I shall have to get a woman to stay with me,” she said slowly.
“An elderly woman?”
“No! No! A young woman—a strapping country girl with boisterous spirits,” she protested, an odd husky catch in her voice.
I revolved this in my mind. “Wanza Lyttle is the very one for you,” I declared jubilantly. Then I added uncertainly: “That is, if she will come.”