She shot her next question roughly. She was determined to know the exact relationship of this Nanna to the man beside her. Undoubtedly she was the woman of the locket, whose fair, lovely face Hilda was seeing in imagination too often these days for her peace of mind.
“Is she your sister?”
“Oh, no. No relation whatever. At least, no blood relation.”
“I see. I sup-pose you think her very—pretty?”
“Lovely,” said Cheerio. Something had leaped into his eyes—something bright and eager. He leaned toward Hilda with the impulse to confide in her, but the look on the girl’s face repelled him, so that he drew back confounded and puzzled. Hilda set her little white teeth tightly together, put up her nose, and, with a toss of her head, said:
“For goodness sakes, let’s get home. Hi, Daisy! get a wiggle on you, you old poke.”
She was off on the last lap of the journey.
In her room, she faced herself in the wide mirror and revealed a remarkable circumstance so far as she was concerned. Tears, bitter and scorching, were running down her face. Clinching her hands, she said to the tear-stained vision in the mirror:
“It’s just because I hate him so! Oh, how I hate him. I never knew anyone in all the days of my life that I hated so much before and I’d give anything on earth if only I could just hurt him!”
Hurt him she did, for the following evening when he brought her horse, saddled and ready for her, to the front of the ranch house, Hilda, in the swinging couch on the verandah apparently deeply absorbed in a dictionary, looked up coolly, and inquired what the hell he was doing with her horse.