“I said there’s two weeks yet.”
“You mean I could—fix one?”
The light in the girl’s eyes told the man all he wanted to know. She was a little overwhelmed, but wholly yielding. Her excitement was apparent in the rise and fall of her gently swelling bosom. He pressed her the more surely.
“Surely you could. There’s all the elegant stuff you need in Mike’s store in Hartspool. Make a trip in after you get your cows back—if the cattle thieves haven’t got ’em,” he said with a laugh. “Say, Molly, promise. You will?” he urged, leaning forward and suddenly reaching out for possession of her hands. “Promise,” he cried. “You must come. I—I——”
But the girl had risen from her seat. Perhaps it was those reaching hands she wished to avoid. Perhaps— Something was stirring within her, a feeling she had never known before. Quite suddenly she found herself impelled to flee from the sight of those appealing eyes, beyond the reach of those outheld hands. For one moment her cheeks had paled. Then, in an instant, a deep flush suffused them right up to the temples, and the broad, low forehead, shaded by the wide brim of her hat. She glanced quickly out over the clearing. Then she laughed. It was a forced laugh she was almost unconscious of.
“I—I won’t promise, Andy. I’ll just—think about it.”
The man urged her no further. He was content. He knew.
“All right, Molly,” he said, rising from his bucket. “That’s fixed.”
His confidence passed all unheeded. Molly was lost in the new, strange sensations of the moment. Quite suddenly and almost sharply she declared her intention of going.
“I’ll saddle up right away,” she cried. “Look! Look where the sun is! I must have sat here more than an hour!”