e she was all right.

When I was through I stood up and found that she was regarding me
curiously, yet with some amusement. She seemed to feel herself mistress of
the situation, and to consider me as an interesting plaything. I didn't
approve that attitude.

"At all events," she said when she met my eyes, and speaking as if there
had been no break in our conversation, "you are rather a _good_ joke.
Thank you so much."

I put away the wrench, fastened the lid of the tool-box, and then I faced
her grimly. "I see mere words are wasted on you," I said. "I shall have to
carry you off--Beryl King; I _shall_ carry you off if you look at me that
way again!"

She did look that way, only more so. I wonder what she thought a man was
made of, to stand it. I set my teeth hard together.

"Have you got the--er--the black velvet mask?" she taunted, leaning just
the least bit toward me. Her eyes--I say it deliberately--were a direct
challenge that no man could refuse to accept and feel himself a man after.

"Mask or no mask--you'll see!" I turned away to where my horse was
standing eying the car with extreme disfavor, picked up the reins, and
glanced over my shoulder; I didn't know but she would give me the slip.
She was sitting very straight, with both hands on the wheel and her eyes
looking straight before her. She might have been posing for a photograph,
from the look of her. I tied the reins with a quick twist over the
saddle-horn and gave him a slap on the rump. I knew he would go straight
home. Then I went back and stepped into the car just as she reached down
and started the motor. If she had meant to run away from me she had been
just a second too late. She gave me a sidelong, measuring glance, and
gasped. The car slid easily along the trail as if it were listening for
what we were going to say.

"I shall drive," I announced quietly, taking her hands gently from the
wheel. She moved over to make room mechanically, as if she didn't in the
least understand this new move of mine. I know she never dreamed of what
was really in my heart to do.

"You will drive--where?" her voice was politely freezing.

"To find that preacher, of course," I answered, trying to sound surprised
that she should ask, I sent the speed up a notch.

"You--you never would _dare_!" she cried breathlessly, and a little
anxiously.

"The deuce I wouldn't!" I retorted, and laughed in the face of her. It was
queer, but my thoughts went back, for just a