ad dubiously as he watched him
from the window. He would have felt more dubious still had he seen the
boy board a Florence car a few minutes later on his way to keep a
rendezvous with the girl about whom he had not wished to talk.

CHAPTER V

WHEN YOUTH MEETS YOUTH

Three quarters of an hour later Ted was seated on a log, near a small
rustic bridge, beneath which flowed a limpid, gurgling stream. On a log
beside him sat a girl of perhaps eighteen years, exceedingly handsome
with the flaming kind of beauty like a poppy's, striking to the eye,
shallow-petaled. She was vividly effective against the background of deep
green spruces and white birch in her bright pink dress and large drooping
black hat. Her coloring was brilliant, her lips full, scarlet, ripely
sensuous. Beneath her straight black brows her sparkling, black eyes
gleamed with restless eagerness. An ugly, jagged, still fresh wound
showed beneath a carefully curled fringe of hair on her forehead.

"I don't like meeting you this way," Ted was saying. "Are you sure your
grandfather would have cut up rough if I had come to the house and called
properly?"

"You betcher," said his companion promptly. "You don't know grandpa. He's
death on young men. He won't let one come within a mile of me if he can
help it. He'd throw a fit if he knew I was here with you now. We should
worry. What he don't know won't hurt him," she concluded with a toss of
her head. Then, as Ted looked dubious, she added, "You just leave grandpa
to me. If you had had your way you would have spilled the beans by
telephoning me this morning at the wrong time. See how much better I
fixed it. I told him a piece of wood flew up and hit me when I was
chopping kindling before breakfast and that my head ached so I didn't
feel like going to church. Then the minute he was out of the yard I ran
to the 'phone and got you at the hotel. It was perfectly simple that
way--slick as grease. Easiest thing in the world to make a date. We
couldn't have gotten away with it otherwise."

Ted still looked dubious. The phrase "gotten away with it" jarred. At the
moment he was not particularly proud of their mutual success in "getting
away with it." The girl wasn't his kind. He realized that, now he saw her
for the first time in daylight.

She had looked all right to him on the train night before last. Indeed he
had been distinctly fascinated by her flashing, gypsy beauty, ready
laughter and quick, keen, half