"Not at all," said Burleson.
This time the silence was strained; Miss Elliott remained very still and
thoughtful.
"I think," he said, "that this country is only matched in paradise. It
is the most beautiful place on earth!"
To this astonishing statement she prepared no answer. The forest was
attractive, the sun perhaps brighter than usual--or was it only her
imagination due to her own happiness in selling The Witch?
"When may I call upon Mr. Elliott?" he asked, suddenly. "To-night?"
No; really he was too abrupt, his conversation flickering from one
subject to another without relevance, without logic. She had no time to
reflect, to decide what he meant, before, crack! he was off on another
trail--and his English no vehicle for the conveyance of his ideas.
"There is something," he continued, "that I wish to ask you. May I?"
She bit her lip, then laughed, her gray eyes searching his. "Ask it, Mr.
Burleson, for if I lived a million years I'm perfectly certain I could
never guess what you are going to say next."
"It's only this," he said, with a worried look, "I don't know your first
name."
"Why should you?" she demanded, amused, yet instinctively resentful. "I
don't know yours, either, Mr. Burleson--and I don't even ask you."
"Oh, I'll tell you," he said; "my name is only John William. Now will
you tell me yours?"
She remained silent, coping with a candor that she had not met with
since she went to parties in a muslin frock. She remembered one boy who
had proposed elopement on ten minutes' acquaintance. Burleson, somehow
or other, reminded her of that boy.
"My name," she said, carelessly, "is Constance."
"I like that name," said Burleson.
It was pretty nearly the last straw. Never had she been conscious of
being so spontaneously, so unreasonably approved of since that wretched
boy had suggested flight at her first party. She could not separate the
memory of the innocent youth from Burleson; he was intensely like that
boy; and she had liked the boy, too--liked him so much that in those ten
heavenly minutes' acquaintance she was half persuaded to consent--only
there was nowhere to fly to, and before they could decide her nurse
arrived.
"If you had not told me your first name," said Burleson, "how could
anybody make out a check to your order?"
"Is _that_ why--" she began; and without the slightest reason her heart
gave a curious little tremor of disappointment.
"You see," he said, cheerfully, "it was not impertinence--it was only
formality."
"I see," she said, approvingly, and began to find him a trifle tiresome.
Meanwhile he had confidently skipped to another subject. "Phosphates and
nitrogen are what those people need for their farms. Now if you prepare
your soil--do your own mixing, of course--then begin with red clover,
and plough--"
Her gray eyes were so wide open that he stopped short to observe them;
they were so beautiful that his observation continued until she colored
furiously. It was the last straw.
"The fire is out, I think," she said, calmly, rising to her feet; "my
duty here is ended, Mr. Burleson."
"Oh--are you going?" he asked, with undisguised disappointment. She
regarded him in silence for a moment. How astonishingly like that boy he
was--this six-foot--
"Of course I am going," she said, and wondered why she had said "of
course" with emphasis. Then she whistled to her mare.
"May I ride with you to the house?" he asked, humbly.
She was going to say several things, all politely refusing. What she did
say was, "Not this time."
Then she was furious with herself, and began to hate him fiercely, until
she saw something in his face that startled her. The mare came up; she
flung the bridle over hastily, set foot to metal, and seated herself in
a flash. Then she looked down at the man beside her, prepared for his
next remark.