“Tittered the way he does and congratulated me on the good job I had done. He’s a venomous old snake, but I don’t see that he can do us any harm. There’s nothing left to do now but the detail work of putting in the ditches.”
They talked for a few minutes about the irrigation project. The engineer did not betray the least self-consciousness, but his mind, too, was running on the last time he had seen Betty and the break between them.
Reed was called away by one of the men to look at a sick horse.
Merrick’s steady gaze at once challenged Betty. “I got your letter.”
She was a good deal less composed than he. It disconcerted her to know that she was blushing. That was a silly way to do, she told herself. It annoyed her to give an exhibition of gaucherie.
“Yes,” she murmured.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that we made a mistake,” he said. “We rushed into a decision too hastily.”
“Yes,” Betty agreed.
“You’re young. I hadn’t given enough consideration to that. Shall we forget our differences and be as we were, Betty?”
“You don’t mean—be engaged?”