tinent," he returned. "I
wouldn't reckon that askin' you what you are writin' would be
impertinent. It's too long for a letter."

"It is a novel," she returned shortly.

He smiled, exulting over this partial concession. "I reckon to write a
book you must be some special kind of a woman," he observed admiringly.

She was silent. He sat up and leaned toward her, his eyes flashing
with a sudden passion.

"If that's it," he said with unmistakable significance, "I don't mind
tellin' you that I'm some partial to them special kind."

Her chin rose a little. "I am not concerned over your feelings," she
returned without looking at him.

"That kind of a woman would naturally know a heap," he went on,
apparently unmindful of the rebuke; "they'd cert'nly know enough to be
able to see when a man likes them."

She evidently understood the drift, for her eyes glowed subtly. "It is
too bad that you are not a 'special kind of man,' then," she replied.

"Meanin'?" he questioned, his eyes glinting with eagerness.

"Meaning that if you were a 'special kind of man' you would be able to
tell when a woman doesn't like you," she said coldly.

"I reckon that I ain't a special kind then," he declared, his face
reddening slightly. "Of course, I've seen that you ain't appeared to
take much of a shine to me. But I've heard that there's women that can
be won if a man keeps at it long enough."

"Some men like to waste their time," she returned quietly.

"I don't call it wastin' time to be talkin' to you," he declared
rapidly.

"Our opinions differ," she observed shortly, resting the pencil point
on the page that she had been writing.

Her profile was toward him; her cheeks were tinged with color; some
stray wisps of hair hung, breeze-blown, over her forehead and temples.
She made an attractive picture, sitting there with the soft sunlight
about her, a picture whose beauty smote Leviatt's heart with a pang of
sudden regret and disappointment. She might have been his, but for the
coming of Ferguson. And now, because of the stray-man's wiles, he was
losing her.

A sudden rage seized upon him; he leaned forward, his face bloating
poisonously. "Mebbe I could name a man who ain't wastin' his time!" he
sneered.

She turned suddenly and looked at him, dropping pencil and paper, her
eyes flashing with a hitter scorn. "You are one of those sulking
cowards who fawn over men and insult defenseless women!" she declared,
the words