Farnham was so pleased with the smile that he cared nothing for the word, and so he continued in a tone of anxious and coaxing good-nature, every word increasing her trouble: 

“You are wrong as you can be.  I am a much better groom than Andrews.  He has rather more style, I admit, on account of his Scotch accent and his rheumatism.  But I might acquire these.  I will be very attentive and respectful.  I will ride at a proper distance behind you, if you will occasionally throw a word and a smile over your shoulder at me.”

As he spoke, a quick vision flashed upon him of the loveliness of the head and shoulder, and the coil of fair hair which he should have before him if he rode after her, and the illumination of the smile and the word which would occasionally be thrown back to him from these perfect lips and teeth and eyes.  His voice trembled with love and eagerness as he pleaded for the privilege of taking her servant’s place.  Alice no longer dared to interrupt him, and hardly ventured to lift her eyes from the floor.  She had come down with the firm purpose of saying something to him which would put an end to all intimacy, and here, before she had been five minutes in his presence, he was talking to her in a way that delighted her ears and her heart.  He went rattling on as if fearful that a pause might bring a change of mood.  As she rarely looked up, he could feast his eyes upon her face, where now the color was coming and going, and on her shapely hands, which were clasped in her lap.  He talked of Colorado as if it were settled that they were to go there together, and they must certainly have some preliminary training in rough riding; and then, merely to make conversation, he spoke of other places that should only be visited on horseback, always claiming in all of them his post of groom.  Alice felt her trouble and confusion of spirit passing away as the light stream of talk rippled on.  She took little part in it at first, but from monosyllables of assent she passed on to a word of reply from time to time; and before she knew how it happened she was engaged in a frank and hearty interchange of thoughts and fancies, which brought her best faculties into play and made her content with herself, in spite of the occasional intrusion of the idea that she had not been true to herself in letting her just anger die so quickly away.

If Farnham could have seen into the proud and honest heart of the young girl he was talking to, he would have rested on the field he had won, and not tempted a further adventure.  Her anger against him had been dissipated by the very effort she had made to give it effect, and she had fallen insensibly into the old relation of good neighborhood and unreserved admiration with which she had always regarded him.  She had silenced her scruples by the thought that in talking pleasantly with him she was obeying her mother, and that after all it was not her business to judge him.  If he could have known his own best interest, he would have left her then, when her voice and her smile had become gay and unembarrassed according to their wont, with her conscience at ease about his faults, and her mind filled with a pleasant memory of his visit.