“Oh, yes, indeed.  I love to run the car!” she said, with a swift, smiling glance.

“Well, you want to keep your eyes on the road,” he warned her.  “There’s nothing worries me like having a lady at the wheel,” he went on, good-naturedly, “that’s the time I say my prayers!”

“Plenty of women running cars now, Martin!” Alix said, cheerfully, wishing that Martin didn’t always and infallibly nettle her.

“But it’s no business for a woman,” he assured her, in a suddenly serious and confidential undertone.  “No business for them!  They haven’t the strength, in the first place, and they haven’t—­well, they’re too nervous, in the second.  Mouse cross the road,” said Martin, sucking in deep breaths as he lighted a cigar, “and—­whee!  Over she goes into a ditch.  No,” he said, kindly, “I’m a great friend of all the ladies, but I think they make a mistake when they think they’re men.”

“Only one accident in ten is with a woman driver,” Alix argued.

“That may be true, too,” Martin conceded, largely.  She knew that he was drawing his words merely to cover any impression of being caught unprepared.  “That may be true, too.  But don’t you believe that half the cases of women’s accidents get into the courts,” he added, knowingly.  “You bet your life they don’t!  You bet your sweet life they don’t.  Oh, no—­pretty girl smiles at the policeman—­” He smoked a few seconds in triumphant silence.  “Why, you knew that, didn’t you?” he asked, in kindly patronage.

“I suppose so!” Alix said, briefly, after swallowing a more spirited answer with a gulp.

“Oh, sure!” Martin agreed, in great content.

They reached the valley, and Martin was magnanimous about the delayed lunch.  Anything would do for him, he said, he was taking a couple of days’ holiday, and everything went.  Kow was chopping wood after lunch, and he sauntered out to the block with suggestions; Alix, laying a fire for the evening, simply because she liked to do that sort of work, was favoured with directions.  Finally Martin pushed her aside.

“Here, let me do that,” he said.  “You’d have a fine fire here, at that rate!”

Later he went down to the old house with them, to spend there an hour that was trying to both women.  It was almost in order now; Cherry had pleased her simple fancy in the matter of hangings and papering, and the effect was fresh and good.  The kitchen smelled cleanly of white paint, and the other rooms wore almost their old, hospitable aspect.

“Girls going to rent this?” Martin asked.

“Unless you and Cherry come live here,” Alix said, boldly.  He smiled tolerantly.

“Why should we?”

“Well, why shouldn’t you?”

“Loafing, eh?”

“No, not loafing.  But you could transfer your work to San Francisco, couldn’t you?” Martin smiled a deep, wise, long-enduring smile.

“Oh, you’d get me a job, I suppose?” he asked.  “I love the way you women try to run things,” he added, “but I guess I’ll paddle my own canoe for awhile longer!”