Page:Hare and Tortoise (1925).pdf/65

 funny if I should get so used to you I answered you back, like in school?"

"There's no telling where it will stop. You're a venturesome woman."

Louise laughed merrily. "Don't you love adventure?" It was an announcement rather than an inquiry.

Late in the afternoon they reached the fields where the men were cutting the scanty crops. Keble on his buckskin mare was in consultation with the superintendent, and on hearing the honk of the car wheeled about, came toward the road, and dismounted.

"Miriam dear, this is my husband. His name is Keble, and he's frightened to death that you'll notice, though not call attention to, the muddy spot on the breeches that Mona cleaned this very morning. Keble, this is Miriam Cread, who is coming to stop with us as long as I can force her to stay."

Keble took a firm white hand in his. The stranger's smile, the confident poise of her head, the simple little hat whose slant somehow suggested Bond Street or the Rue de la Paix, amazed him. It was as though Louise had brought home a Sargent portrait and said she had bought it at the Witney emporium.

"What I can't forgive you for, my dear," he said blandly enough, "is that you should have kept me so long in ignorance of such a charming friend's existence." He turned to the guest. "I've heard all