She was thinking over the little incident now, as she sat sewing in the evening light, and meditating whether she should give Magda a hint that it might be kinder of her not to monopolise so much of Dan’s society. And then the crisp sound of a horse trotting on the hard, dry road came to her ears, and almost immediately the high dog-cart swung between the granite gateposts and clattered into the yard.
Dan tossed the reins on to the horse’s neck and, springing to the ground, came round to help Magda down from the cart.
“It’s rather a steep step. Let me lift you down,” he said.
“Very well.”
Magda stood up in the trap and looked down at him with smiling eyes, unconsciously delighting in his sheer physical good looks. He was a magnificent specimen of manhood, and the good yeoman blood in him, which had come down through the generations of the same sturdy stock, proclaimed itself in his fine physique and splendid virility.
A moment later he had swung her down as easily as though she were a child, and she was standing beside him.
She laughed up at him.
“Oh, ‘girt Jan Ridd’!” she exclaimed softly.
He laughed back, well pleased. (Was there ever a man who failed to be ridiculously flattered by a feminine tribute to his physical strength?) Nor did his hands release her quite at once.
“You’re as light as a feather! I could carry you all day and—”