“I am very glad of the chance to tell it to you,” he answered.
“When you were delirious you sometimes begged some one you called Ned not to break his mother’s heart. I thought then you might be speaking to yourself as ill people do. Of course I see now it was your cousin that was on your mind.”
“When I was out of my head I must have talked a lot of nonsense,” he suggested, in the voice of a question. “I expect I had opinions I wouldn’t have been scattering around so free if I’d known what I was saying.”
He was hardly prepared for the tide of color that swept her cheeks at his words nor for the momentary confusion that shuttered the shy eyes with long lashes cast down.
“Sick folks do talk foolishness, they say,” he added, his gaze trained on her suspiciously.
“Do they?”
“Mrs. Winslow says I did. But when I asked her what it was I said she only laughed and told me to ask y’u. Well, I’m askin’ now.”
She became very busy over the teapot. “You talked about the work at your ranch—sheep dipping and such things.”
“Was that all?”
“No, about lots of other things—football and your early life. I don’t see what Mrs. Winslow meant. Will you have some more tea?”