Cherry looked at Martin daringly as she joined the labourers; her whole being was thrilling to the excitement of his glance; she was hardly conscious of what she was doing or saying.  Under her father’s direction she tied ropes, presently was placed with her arms clasped tightly about a great sheaf of vines, ready for the united tug.  Martin came close to her, in the general confusion.

“How’s my little sweetheart this morning?”

Cherry looked up, her throat contracted, she looked down again, unable to speak.  She had been waiting for his first word; now that it had come it seemed so far richer and sweeter than her wildest dream.

“How can I see you a minute?” Martin murmured, snapping his big knife shut.

“I have to walk down for the mail—­” stammered Cherry, conscious only of Martin and herself.

Both Peter and her father were watching her with an uneasiness and suspicion that had sprung into being full-blown.  Both men were asking themselves what they knew of this strange young man who was suddenly a part of their intimate little world.

He was simply a man; not unusual in any apparent way.  He was ready with his words, fairly good-looking, clean and muscular, his evident lack of polish in languages and letters atoned for by his quick wit, and by a certain boyish artlessness and ingenuousness.  He represented himself as about to receive an excellent salary at the mine at El Nido, two thousand a year, but also admitted cheerfully that he was always “broke.”  He had distinguished himself at college, but had left it after only two years, upon being offered a promising position.  There was nothing especially to admire in him, nothing especially to blame; under other circumstances Peter and the doctor might have pronounced him as one of the least interesting of human specimens.  The beauty of childhood and adolescence were gone, the ripeness given by years and suffering was wanting; Martin Lloyd was just, as he himself laughingly remarked, “one of the fellers.”

Peter had secretly criticized him because he used the words “’phone” and “photo” and “’Frisco,” but in justice he had to admit to himself that there was no particular significance to the criticism.  He also, in his secret heart, had a vague, dissatisfied feeling that Lloyd was a man who held women, as a class, rather in disrespect, and had probably had his experiences with them, but there was no way of expressing, much less governing, his conduct toward Martin by so purely speculative a prejudice.  The young man had dined at his house a few nights ago, had shown an admiration, if not an appreciation, for music, had talked with sufficient intelligence about political matters, mining, and—­what else? photography, and pullman cars, and the latest wreck off Bolinas—­ just the random conversation that was apt to trail through a country dinner.  He had told a Chinese joke well, and essayed an Irish joke not so successfully.  Peter, somewhat appalled, in the sunny garden, struggling with the banksia, decided that this was not much to know of a person who might have the audacity to fall in love with an exquisite and innocent Cherry.  After all, she would not be a little girl forever, some man would want to take that little corn-coloured head and that delicious little pink-clad person away with him some day, to be his wife—­