Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/294

282 suggested by his father as valuable exercises had long since ceased; but they had continued long enough for Patrick Boyd to learn what he wanted, and for Kenneth Boyd to have formulated his ideas. He saw very clearly where, to his view, the management of the Rancho could be bettered. He used to chafe openly at old extravagant methods, that seemed to him silly, useless, and so easily remedied. Daphne listened to him with both sympathy and amusement.

"I dare say you're right," was her comment, "but the old Rancho has been going along for a good many years that way. It's the Colonel's way."

"But I don't believe the Colonel knows anything about some of these things," persisted Kenneth. "It isn't that such ways give him any particular pleasure or feeling of being used to them: only his attention just hasn't been called to them. If he noticed them, he'd change them."

"Well, why don't you mention some of them to him and see what he says?" suggested Daphne.

"I don't quite feel like that—it looks rather cocky, a kid of my age giving him advice."

Daphne surveyed him amusedly.

"Since when has the fount of all wisdom begun to go dry?" she enquired.

Kenneth flushed, but turned to her eagerly.

"Oh, say! Honest Injin!" he cried. "Has it struck you that I've been too fresh about things? I suppose that I have shot off my face an awful lot. It isn't that I'm stuck on my ideas so much, really it isn't! I'm just interested and full of it. Do you think your father thinks I'm too fresh?"

In spite of his twenty-three years he looked very boyish, his sunburned forehead wrinkled in anxiety below his close cropped curls, his clear eyes appealing for her opinion. A tide of maternal, tender amusement rose in Daphne's heart. She felt, for a moment, mature and wise and yearning beyond all expression.

"What nonsense!" she reassured him, briskly. "That wasn't what I meant at all, and you know it! But I shouldn't hesitate for a moment to mention anything I saw to Colonel Peyton.