“That’s what I said! Don’t compel me to be impertinent. He had very nice blue eyes; and when he took off his hat his head was very good. I quite liked the way he parted his hair. He was really stunning and I’d have liked to be introduced. But what is his name?”
Merriam was looking straight over his horse’s head and pretended that he did not hear.
“Well, sir?”
“I don’t know the fellow,” said the old gentleman, shortly.
“Oh! He seemed to know you.”
“Humph! It was very unnecessary.”
“He addressed you respectfully by your proper name. You were very impolite to him. He had all the marks of a gentleman.”
“I don’t know all the people that call me by name;” and Rodney Merriam ended the conversation by bringing his horse to a gallop.
When they parted presently at Zelda’s door, Rodney Merriam had forgotten the incident of the meeting on the river road, or he pretended that he had, when Zelda said with a fine air of inadvertence:
“Of course, I’ll meet him sometime, somewhere, as the song says.”