Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/72

 "What a calamity! But I wouldn't call it red."

"You're the one exception in a long experience, and I doubt if you're sincere. What, then?"

"Come out in the light," he invited, beckoning her away from the door.

She stood turning, arms outstretched as if she balanced on a pivot, in model-like pose of mock seriousness, for him to judge her hair.

"Red," she nodded, with unshaken conviction.

"Not just red," he protested, baffled for another description.

"Not the red that's in the flag, of course, nor the red of a cow," she said; "but the red of a wicked, sullen, revengeful soul. Was that what you wanted to say?"

"You must have been eating some more of your aunt's what-do-you-call-it? bittersweet, or wild parsnip, or something."

"Wait till you know me better," she challenged, a little too serious, he thought, for a matter so banteringly light.

"Why do you dislike cowboys so much, and you born on the range?" he asked her, as if he, too, had been turning something in his mind overnight.

They went down the steps as by common consent, although no such thing had been proposed, and walked toward the wide, double front gate which swung on two immense tree trunks set deeply in the earth.

"I thought I made it plain last night," she replied after a little seeming deliberation, lifting surprised brows as she turned to meet his inquisitorial eyes.

"Not here in this house—you weren't born here?"