“Ah, my Autumn Maiden!” he cried, seizing her hand tightly. “I don’t know why, because you’re a girl of your word, but somehow I was afraid you’d get cold feet at the last minute and not turn up! Awful glad you didn’t, Holly! You’re a Maple Tree Symphony in that rig! My, but you’re stunning, Holly!”
“Nonsense, Rod! As though I didn’t know I wasn’t pretty!” cried Cis, her whole face spilling over rapture.
“Pretty? Perhaps not; I said stunning! You don’t give a fellow time to consider whether you’re pretty or not,” rejoined Rodney. “You’re mighty easy to look at! No, you’re not, by jiminy! It’s hard afterward, anyway!”
“If you talk stuff to me, Rory O’Moore, I’ll turn around and go home,” cried Cis.
“Then I won’t, not till the train gets to pulling fast! Had anything to eat? It’s a beastly time to ask you to turn out, but I’m not regulating this railroad!” Rodney said.
“Had my breakfast outside, not to bother Mrs. Wallace,” Cis told him. “Ate oodles.”
“Doubt it. Never can trust a girl to feed herself when she’s got anything better to do,” Rod corrected her. “I’ve provender in that basket you see at my feet; some pretty nifty sandwiches, fruit, candy, iced coffee, in a cold thermos. It will hold you alive till we get dinner. We’ll have one dinner, that I promise you! Ever hear of Pioneer Falls? They’re seventy miles from here, through as pretty a country as you’d ask for, and the falls are as good as they’re advertised to be. But the main consideration is that there’s a hotel there which sets up the best dinner I ever ate anywhere, and let me tell you I’ve knocked around some, and I’m a connoozer of food! So don’t you worry, Holly, that you’ll wither and fade away in my hands!”
“Not a worry, Rod! I’m not afraid of what will happen to me in your hands,” Cis assured him with a gay little laugh, but her eyes expressed something remote from laughter.
“By all that’s truthful, Cicely, if anything unhappy, or unfortunate ever came to you at my hands it would be because you would not let my hands work freely for your good,” Rodney said, with such emphasis that Cis looked startled, but he immediately added: “Our train’s made up, Holly: Let’s get our places; better than standing here.”
He led her through the gates, his tickets ready in hand; selected seats on the shaded side, luckily the one which gave the better view of the country which they were to traverse; arranged her coat on a hook; had the porter bring a footstool to lay before her chair; settled himself; swung his own chair full in front of hers and sank back to gaze at her with eyes which needed no tongue to interpret them.