Page:Son of the wind.djvu/218

RV 202 wish to thrust my attentions upon her!" Absurd inconsistency this, while his lips were still hot with memories of the girl's! Yet it was true enough, he had had no "intentions" as far as Blanche Rader was concerned. He was aware of none now; but he was aware of agitation, at the very thought of her, and a wish to keep her name out of the talk at any cost. He cemented safety. "I have had no thought except that she was very kind and gracious to me as to a guest, I give you my word!"

Mrs. Rader's face was strange. "I know you have not," she said. "That is just the trouble."

That singular little sentence, a repeated note, rang ominously to his ear. He had a dread lest the woman might sweep him on with her tide of revelation, further than ever man wanted to be carried. "Very well, I will make my arrangements to go to Beckwith to-morrow morning," he said coldly.

At that he heard the sharp intake of her breath. "Won't you go farther away than that? Won't you go quite away, quite out of the county?"

"My dear Mrs. Rader," he burst forth, irritated beyond control by the woman's insistence, and the quandary it placed him in, "don't you expect rather too much of me?"

"What difference will it make to you," she demanded despairingly, "where you hunt, when all