LITMIR.BIZ

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compliment me on my seat – in a buggy,” she said, demurely.

      He looked at her and laughed out loud, but in a moment dropped again to seriousness.

      “I didn’t half thank you for that last night,” he said. “It was really plucky as well as kind – ”

      “No, no,” she said hastily. “I didn’t mean – don’t let’s talk about it again.”

      “But there’s something I want to tell you about it,” he said. “I’m afraid you may not like it, but I ought to tell,” and he told her of the talk, and the bet between Aleck Gault and him.

      “Are you angry?” he asked when he had finished.

      “Not exactly,” she replied hesitatingly. “Although, of course, a girl doesn’t care about her probable actions being discussed and bet about.”

      “Bless you,” he said laughing. “Don’t you know that there’s been nothing else but you discussed ever since you came here?”

      “I hadn’t thought of it,” she said, a little startled. “But I suppose it’s understandable… But what made you think I would snub you?” she went on. “You know we’d hardly spoken before.”

      They had passed through the gate now, and were moving at a fast trot across the flat.

      “I just guessed you would,” he said slowly. “You see I had a notion that you were forewarned, and therefore fore-armed against me.” He shot a sidelong glance at her, and noticed a faint flush on her cheek. She said nothing, however. “I know the reputation I carry round these parts – some of it worse than I deserve, and some of it not as bad; and it was a fair guess that your uncle would warn you against – er – falling in love with me,” he finished coolly.

      Ess sat up straight very suddenly.

      “You’re rather presuming,” she said quietly, but very coldly. “Do you imagine my uncle thinks I cannot meet a man without falling in love with him? Or is it that you consider yourself so utterly irresistible?”

      “That goes with my reputation – deserved or undeserved,” he said imperturbably.

      “And of course you believe it, and try to act up to it,” she said in her most sarcastic tones. “May I ask if you’re trying to do so now?”

      “Do what?” he asked. “Be irresistible? If so, you can see for yourself that the reputation isn’t deserved. I’m only succeeding in making you thoroughly angry, aren’t I?”

      She only closed her lips tightly, and they drove in silence for nearly a mile.

      “Look here, Miss Lincoln,” said Steve at last. “It’s rather hopeless for us to keep on like this. We’ll be running across each other every day, and it’s a nuisance for me to have to try to keep dodging you, and I’m sure it must be uncomfortable for you if you have to freeze up and put your nose in the air every time I come along. I haven’t the faintest wish to fall in love with you, and there’s no need for me to have, any more than there is for you – ”

      “The latter certainly need not trouble you,” she could not help retorting.

      “There you are, then,” he said. “That being understood, can’t we just get along same as you do with the others in camp? Forget my reputation if you can, so long as I don’t obtrude it on you. Just let’s be ordinary friendly. I’ll promise not to fall in love with you – if I can help it …” he saw the shadow of a smile quiver about her lips, and went on: “I assure you I’d be really afraid to fall in love with any girl and especially with you. I’ve been most clearly warned what will be done to me if I do.”

      “Done to you? What do you mean?”

      “Oh, I’ve had very broad hints as to my conduct from some of the others,” he said lightly.

      “How dare they?” said the girl hotly. “As if I was not able to take care of my own affairs.”

      “Exactly,” agreed Steve. “But that’s my reputation again, you see. They’re afraid you may go down before my fatal fascination.”

      “I hardly know what to make of you,” she said, looking at him curiously. “If another man spoke as you’re doing, about his ‘reputation’ and ‘fascination’ and so on, I’d think him the most insufferably conceited prig. And somehow you don’t seem that.”

      “I’m not,” he assured her promptly. “It’s other people who seem to insist that every girl I meet must admire me. I know better, thank Heaven. I don’t want ’em to, and least of all do I want you to. It would be a most confounded nuisance for one thing. You might expect me to take you out walking when I didn’t want to walk and want to go riding with me when I wanted to go by myself, and forbid my going to the township, and expect me to give up drinking and smoking, and think I ought to go and sit in the house with you every evening.”

      She could contain herself no longer, and her laugh rang out ripplingly.

      “It’s all very well to laugh,” he said reprovingly. “But you know what the average man and girl are when they’re courting. It must be deucedly awkward when they’re living on the same place. It’s all right to be making love to a girl, coming across her at odd times, if there’s nothing else to do, but I fancy it would be too much of a strain to keep it up.”

      “I could imagine it would be,” she admitted.

      “I know I should get horribly tired of it, and of her,” he said; “I do of most girls, anyway – ”

      “Unstable as water,” she put in softly.

      “Now I’ll bet that’s a quotation from your uncle’s warning,” he said triumphantly. “You gave it away that time.”

      “Not necessarily,” she retorted. “I might merely have quoted it as applying to your own description of yourself.”

      “Well, anyway, I hope I’ve made it clear I don’t want any love business between us,” he said. “So is there any reason we shouldn’t just be plain friends without any frills? Of course if you’re afraid of falling in love with me – ” and he paused suggestively.

      “You put it rather cunningly,” she laughed. “If I won’t be friendly it’s because I’m afraid of you, and…”

      “Is there any reason you shouldn’t be, then?” he asked.

      “No,” she said slowly. “Except that you have rather a – well, your reputation, you know. That isn’t meant unkindly, but if we’re going to be friendly, we must be frank.”

      “Surely,” agreed Steve, heartily. “But it will take more than my reputation to smirch you. And although mine is nothing to me, I can assure you yours is. You can trust me that far, in spite of what you may have heard of me.”

      “I’ll trust you,” she said, and held out her hand impulsively. “We’ll be friends then.”

      He took her hand and shook it. “And I’ll ask nothing better,” he said. “Now there are the mulga trees ahead of us. You know we’re cutting them down to feed the sheep on.”

      “Yes, I know,” she said; “Uncle told me all about it. He called this country a battlefield in describing it to me, and he said the mulga was almost the last ammunition you had left to carry on the fight with.”

      “Almost,” Steve said, “and the hills are our last trenches. When the mulga gives out we’ll have to retreat to them, and that’s going to be a bad business. The sheep are too weak to travel far, and it’s a long way for them.”

      A faint wavering cry came across the flats to their ears.

      “Hark! the sound of battle,” he said. “The sheep bleating, in less poetical language. Well, you’ll be right up in the firing line here, and I’m afraid it will be rather sickening for you some ways.”

      “I’m so sorry for the poor sheep,” she said.

      “I’m sorrier for the poor boss,” said Steve.

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