Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/167

Rh was outclassed when it came to a race. While he hovered irresolute, his decision was made for him by the appearance of Dora Stanley and Myra Welch. The two girls had been horseback to call on Pilar Cazadero.

"You're a fine one!" cried Dora. "Why didn't you go with us this morning? And to go sneaking off like this in the afternoon! I declare!"

Privately Kenneth considered this harmless speech as immature and in bad taste; an opinion he would not have held two hours before. However, he might get some desired information.

"Did you see who I was riding with just now?" he asked.

"I should think you would be ashamed, cradle robber!" teased Dora.

"Who was it?" went on Kenneth, a little bewildered.

"You don't mean to say you don't remember her! What a blow!"

"Where did I ever see her before?"

"At the Peyton barbecue, for one place. That's the Brainerd kid."

"The Brainerd kid? " repeated Kenneth, still puzzled. "What do you mean?"

But Myra Welch broke in. She had been watching Kenneth from beneath her sleepy lashes.

"I truly believe he doesn't know, Dora," she drawled. "Do you think you have made another mash, Ken? You know, Dora, with her hair up under her hat that way" Dora went off into what Kenneth indignantly described to himself as shrieks of hyena laughter.

"You're right, Myra, you're right!" she cried. "Ken, listen. Remember that kid you watched the rough-riding with down on the corral fence? "

A great light burst on the mortified Kenneth.

"That kid!" he cried, "that gangle-legged kid, with her hair down her back!"

"Shouldn't speak of a young lady's leg," drawled Myra, who was daring of speech twenty years ahead of her time.

Kenneth had an engagement with Pearl that evening. He