But aloud she was saying, "I hope you're enjoying your trip."
"Oh yes. I like it fine. You having a good time? Well—— Well, thanks for the books."
She was off before him. Presently she exclaimed to Mr. Boltwood: "You know—just occurs to me—it's rather curious that our young friend should be so coincidental as to come along just when we needed him."
"Oh, he just happened to, I suppose," hemmed her father.
"I'm not so sure," she meditated, while she absently watched another member of the Poultry Suicide Club rush out of a safe ditch, prepare to take leave for immortality, change her fowlish mind, flutter up over the hood of the car, and come down squawking her indignities to the barnyard. "I'm not so sure about his happening—— No. I wonder if he could possibly—— Oh no. I hope not. Flattering, but—— You don't suppose he could be deliberately following us?"
"Nonsense! He's a perfectly decent young chap."
"I know. Of course. He probably works hard in a garage, and is terribly nice to his mother and sisters at home. I mean—— I wouldn't want the dear lamb to be a devoted knight, though. Too thankless a job."
She slowed the car down to fifteen an hour. For the first time she began to watch the road behind her. In a few minutes a moving spot showed in the dust three miles back. Oh, naturally; he would still be behind her. Only—— If she stopped, just to look at the scenery, he would go on ahead of her. She stopped for a moment—for a time too brief to indicate that anything had gone wrong with her car. Staring back she saw that the bug stopped also, and she fancied that Milt was out standing beside it, peering with his palm over his eyes—a spy, unnatural and disturbing in the wide peace.
She drove on a mile and halted again; again halted her attendant. He was keeping a consistent two to four miles behind, she estimated.
"This won't do at all," she worried. "Flattering, but somehow—— Whatever sort of a cocoon-wrapped hussy I am, I don't collect scalps. I won't have young men serving me—graft on them—get amusement out of their struggles. Besides—suppose he became just a little more friendly, each time he came up, all the way from here to Seattle?... Fresh.... No, it won't do."