“Sure, that’s it,” he replied.

“But there’s no reason.  None!  Not a reason under the sun,” retorted Lucy, hotly.  “I found you out here.  I did you a—­a little service.  We planned to race Wildfire.  And I came out to ride him. . . .  That’s all.”

Slone’s dark, steady gaze disconcerted Lucy.  “But, no one knows me, and we’ve been alone in secret.”

“It’s not altogether—­that.  I—­I told Auntie,” faltered Lucy.

“Yes, just lately.”

“Lin Slone, I’ll never forgive you if you ask Dad that,” declared Lucy, with startling force.

“I reckon that’s not so important.”

“Oh!—­so you don’t care.”  Lucy felt herself indeed in a mood not comprehensible to her.  Her blood raced.  She wanted to be furious with Slone, but somehow she could not wholly be so.  There was something about him that made her feel small and thoughtless and selfish.  Slone had hurt her pride.  But the thing that she feared and resented and could not understand was the strange gladness Slone’s declaration roused in her.  She tried to control her temper so she could think.  Two emotions contended within her—­one of intense annoyance at the thought of embarrassment surely to follow Slone’s action, and the other a vague, disturbing element, all sweet and furious and inexplicable.  She must try to dissuade him from approaching her father.

“Please don’t go to Dad.”  She put a hand on Slone’s arm as he stood close up to Wildfire.

“I reckon I will,” he said.

“Lin!” In that word there was the subtle, nameless charm of an intimacy she had never granted him until that moment.  He seemed drawn as if by invisible wires.  He put a shaking hand on hers and crushed her gauntleted fingers.  And Lucy, in the current now of her woman’s need to be placated if not obeyed, pressed her small hand to his.  How strange to what lengths a little submission to her feeling had carried her!  Every spoken word, every movement, seemed to exact more from her.  She did not know herself.

“Lin! . . .  Promise not to—­speak to Dad!”

“No.”  His voice rang.

“Don’t give me away—­don’t tell my Dad!”

“What?” he queried, incredulously.

Lucy did not understand what.  But his amazed voice, his wide-open eyes of bewilderment, seemed to aid her into piercing the maze of her own mind.  A hundred thoughts whirled together, and all around them was wrapped the warm, strong feeling of his hand on hers.  What did she mean that he would tell her father?  There seemed to be a deep, hidden self in her.  Up out of these depths came a whisper, like a ray of light, and it said to her that there was more hope for Lin Slone than he had ever had in one of his wildest dreams.

“Lin, if you tell Dad—­then he’ll know—­and there won’t be any hope for you!” cried Lucy, honestly.

If Slone caught the significance of her words he did not believe it.