w!" He sat and looked at her. "And since I don't remember clearly
whether I've said it already this morning, I'll chance repeating it.
You're the one prettiest thing in all this world--and it's not an
unhandsome world this morning, either."

For a moment longer her mood lasted while she surveyed him with
dark-eyed audacity, head poised on one side in that attitude of wholly
happy intimacy with which he had seen her many times greet Caleb Hunter.

"For a man who claims to be strictly an amateur," she murmured, "I can
only reply--you do extremely well, sir!"

And then, as if her words had rung too cheaply flippant in her own
ears, she took both hands impetuously from his. She started her horse
abruptly. And it was yards before he overtook her, rods before she
dropped back to a walk. Her face had become wistful in its earnestness.

"That was pretty, and sincere, and--and like you," she mused. "I
wonder why my answer sounded not quite so innately fine? Do you
suppose it was because I've already become accustomed to meeting
flippancy with flippancy? For if that isn't the reason then how would
you explain my--my persistent tendency toward frivolity with you?
Because it exists, you know. Truly it does! If I yielded to the
impulse that is always with me, I--I'd coquette with you,
disgracefully. Doesn't that--even surprise you? Now you _are_
laughing at me . . . why, you weren't listening at all!"

His shamefacedness was an admission of guilt, but he shook his head in
contradiction.

"Not at you," he corrected her. "I wasn't laughing very heartily, or
very steadily, was I? And I'm trying to listen; I am trying to pay
attention to everything you say. It just isn't an easy thing to do,
that's all, when--when I'm looking at you, too. But I promised you
that you were always going to be sure of me. Couldn't that be reason
enough; can't we just say you'd sensed it, yourself, even without my
telling you so?"

She bobbed her head, most anxious for his gravity now that she was not
sure whether it was real or not.

"I knew that must be it," she argued seriously. "I thought it must be,
anyway. I just feel safe with you. And yet I don't want you ever to
believe, either, that I am deliberately playing. It's just--oh, in my
heart I know that you haven't any more than those two deuces, and--and
the deal is mine. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? They
always say it in--in books, Mr. O'Mara. They always a