"And how d'ye ken he didna mean me?" Jean enquired, drawing in her chin and making a mouth at the messenger.
"Cos he said a 'young, good-lookin' one'," replied the youth, ingenuously; evading adroitly, however, Jean's muscular red hand as it swung in his direction.
"Sauce-box! Ye'll just keep the len'th o' my arm away, if ye're canny, after a rap like that. Skedaddle!"
The courier skedaddled. Jean closed the door and returned to the cosy table, with its cake-plate, tea-pot under cosy, cups and saucers, and sugar-dish. Daisy stood up before the looking-glass and gave her hair a little poke with her forefinger and thumb.
"Sit ye doon, lassie," Jean advised, as she stirred her tea, "let the mon come awa in, if he wants to court ye. I'm off tae my bed, richt this minute, and ye'll have the place to yersel's."
"Oh-h, I guess 'll just go and see," Daisy's eyes sparkled with resource and daring; "if it's somebody I know, I'll tell him to come earlier next time, and send him off home."
"And if it's a'body ye dinna ken," Jean said, squaring a great forearm on the table, "juist skirl. I'll bide here, with the outside door no snibbit, an' listen for a wee, in case ye need me."
Daisy's feet made a light brisk tapping on the contractor's cement driveway as she stepped smartly down toward the gate. Behind her, the big house was gradually darkening to retiring-time. Before her were great maples, with mysterious darkness between—thickening into a group with dark undergrowth at the point where the two stone gateposts marked the junction of driveway and street.
Three persons were in Daisy's mind. First, Beatty—although how he had found out her whereabouts was a puzzle. Second, old Jim Hogle of the Imperial Hotel—for the sylph, whose impulse of meanness Daisy had estimated as strong enough to over-balance self-consideration any day, might easily have played her false and told Hogle where she was. Third, the chauffeur of the jitney, perhaps come back, on the excuse of calling for his fare, to ask her to go out for a "car-ride."
Daisy found herself, in fact, hoping that the tarrier under the trees might be one of the three, although her reason for wanting to see each was different. She hoped it was Beatty, for his taking the trouble to trace her would show that he cared, which it would be a satisfaction to know. She hoped it was old Hogle, in order that she might have the chance to tell him, "plump and plain" and finally, that she was quite capable of looking after herself, and to mind his own business. She hoped it might be the chauffeur, because there had been something about that curly head and humorous eye, as well as in his friendly warning about entering the Harrison house "the back way", that suggested he might develop on acquaintance into very good "company." To Daisy, men were of only two classes—those who were "forward" and "had fun in them," and those who were backward and hadn't. She preferred "forward" to "backward" men: first, because curbing a man was "more sport" to a girl of Daisy's merry intrepidity than having to encourage him; and secondly, because backward men usually "went crazy" when once you got them started, and could not be handled at all.