“I guess I’ll crowd him.”
“Oh!”
The time was ripe, he thought. “Give me Lucy,” he repeated, doggedly, “or I’ll foul him.”
He had expected to frighten her. He had told himself what fun it would be to hear her give her agitated assent, with the fear of death on her if she refused. It was to be a fine revenge. But Miss Herron only raised a warning forefinger.
“Archie Fraser,” she said, in trembling tones, “if—if you take the dust from those common young women and that vulgar man, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Great heavens, Miss Herron! I—I——”
“Beat ’em!” she ordered truculently.
He stuck blindly to his point: “Lucy?”
“Beat ’em! Show me,” she declaimed, in trumpet tones, “that the man who wants to marry a Herron has some courage in him. Now!”
The road narrowed just ahead, where it led through a cut in the hill and then down to the bridge. On either side the banks rose eight or ten feet, and very steep, and beyond was a sharp curve. Archie made his horn speak angrily, as once more he came abreast of his rival, favored by the fact that Mayer had struck a strip of newly repaired and soft roadway some yards long. A second later he was leading.