“If I had been out, I'd have taken every fence,” she said, boastfully, and then laughed. He laughed too.
“If I—if you were my sister, I shouldn't let you follow Ralph Manstey on horseback. He's utterly reckless.”
“So am I,” she came in, with spirit. “At home I ride anything and jump everything.”
“Well, you shouldn't if you were my sister,” he repeated, decisively.
“I'm sorry for your sister,” she declared.
“Well, you see, I haven't one,” he said, gayly, and smiled down at her lifted face. Remembering the letter, she corrected her expression to colder lines.
“There's no one to introduce us,”—he broke the pause. “Mayn't I—” He colored and put his hand into his pocket, and taking out her letter, folded the blank sheet out and produced a pencil. “It's hard to call one's own name,” he continued. “Suppose we write our names?”
As he was clumsy in finesse, she understood his idea, and her eyes flashed. But she said nothing as he scribbled and handed the paper to her. She read, “C.K. Farringdon,” and played with the pencil.
“Mr. Farringdon,”—she said it over meditatively. “How plainly you write! My name's Edith Eversley,” she added, tranquilly, and, because she must, per force, returned the sheet to him. She had a wicked delight in the defeat of his strategy which she could cleverly conceal.
“I wish,” he deprecated, gently, but with persistence, “that you would write your name here—won't you, as a souvenir?”