Page:Son of the wind.djvu/220

RV 204 "She hasn't been herself quite, since that first morning. Do you suppose she takes as much time for most men? Do you suppose she goes out riding all the morning whenever some one asks her? Do you suppose she makes the rooms so pretty for Bert Ferrier to play whist? She is very cold and very difficult with most. O, she's clever—much cleverer than I with people; and she can keep them at a distance. As long as she isn't interested I know she's safe—and she has never been interested in any one before! But as soon as I saw you, I knew you were—" She was rushing upon it with the appalling passion of women for revealing truths which are intended to remain hidden, which can not bear the light, before which men recoil and quail.

"Mrs. Rader," he broke in, "I can not let you think it. I assure you you're entirely mistaken. Your daughter is—" He paused before the many things Blanche Rader apparently was. Her mother had spoken as if she were a helpless little country girl, the merest mouse in the paws of the cat; but it was plain to him she was very much a person to be reckoned with; a girl of fascinations, a dangerous woman. "She is absolutely disinterested where I'm concerned," he said flatly, and for the moment believed it. "Don't suppose anything else," he added, looking squarely into the woman's face, still skep-