“I don’t know as I do.”

“You say that because you always deserve it.  You can’t tell how it is with a fellow like me.  I should want you to like me, Cynthy, whatever you thought of me.”  He looked round into her face, but she turned it away.

They had struck the level, long for the hill country, at the foot of the hotel road, and the mare, that found herself neither mounting nor descending a steep, dropped from the trot proper for an acclivity into a rapid walk.

“This mare can walk like a Kentucky horse,” said Jeff.  “I believe I could teach her single-foot.”  He added, with a laugh, “If I knew how,” and now Cynthia laughed with him.

“I was just going to say that.”

“Yes, you don’t lose many chances to give me a dig, do you?”

“Oh, I don’t know as I look for them.  Perhaps I don’t need to.”  The pine woods were deep on either side.  They whispered in the thin, sweet wind, and gave out their odor in the high, westering sun.  They covered with their shadows the road that ran velvety between them.

“This is nice,” said Jeff, letting himself rest against the back of the seat.  He stretched his left arm along the top, and presently it dropped and folded itself about the waist of the girl.

“You may take your arm away, Jeff,” she said, quietly.

“Why?”

“Because it has no right there, for one thing!” She drew herself a little aside and looked round at him.  “You wouldn’t put it round a town girl if you were riding with her.”

“I shouldn’t be riding with her:  Girls don’t go buggy-riding in town any more,” said Jeff, brutally.

“Then I shall know what to do the next time you ask me.”

“Oh, they’d go quick enough if I asked them up here in the country.  Etiquette don’t count with them when they’re on a vacation.”

“I’m not on a vacation; so it counts with me.  Please take your arm away,” said Cynthia.

“Oh, all right.  But I shouldn’t object to your putting your arm around me.”

“You will never have the chance.”

“Why are you so hard on me, Cynthy ?” asked Jeff.  “You didn’t used to be so.”

“People change.”

“Do I?”

“Not for the better.”

Jeff was dumb.  She was pleased with her hit, and laughed.  But her laugh did not encourage him to put his arm round her again.  He let the mare walk on, and left her to resume the conversation at whatever point she would.

She made no haste to resume it.  At last she said, with sufficient apparent remoteness from the subject they had dropped:  “Jeff, I don’t know whether you want me to talk about it.  But I guess I ought to, even if it isn’t my place exactly.  I don’t think Jackson’s very well, this summer.”

Jeff faced round toward her.  “What makes you think he isn’t well?”

“He’s weaker.  Haven’t you noticed it?”

“Yes, I have noticed that.  He’s worked down; that’s all.”