"But I've never been here before, to Silliston," she responded in the same spirit: and she added wistfully, "it must be nice to live in such a beautiful place as this!"
"Yes, it is nice," he agreed. "We have our troubles, too,--but it's nice."
She ventured a second, appraising glance. His head, which he carried a little flung back, his voice, his easy and confident bearing--all these contradicted the saw and the hammer, the flannel shirt, open at the neck, the khaki trousers still bearing the price tag. And curiosity beginning to get the better of her, she was emboldened to pay a compliment to the fence. If one had to work, it must be a pleasure to work on things pleasing to the eye--such was her inference.
"Why, I'm glad you like it," he said heartily. "I was just hoping some one would come along here and admire it. Now--what colour would you paint it?"
"Are you a painter, too?"
"After a fashion. I'm a sort of man of all work--I thought of painting it white, with the pillars green."
"I think that would be pretty," she answered, judicially, after a moment's thought. "What else can you do?"
He appeared to be pondering his accomplishments.
"Well, I can doctor trees," he said, pointing an efficient finger at the magnificent maple sheltering, like a guardian deity, the old farmhouse. "I put in those patches."
"They're cement," she exclaimed. "I never heard of putting cement in trees."
"They don't seem to mind."
"Are the holes very deep?"
"Pretty deep."
"But I should think the tree would be dead."
"Well, you see the life of a tree is right under the bark. If you can keep the outer covering intact, the tree will live."
"Why did you let the holes get so deep?"
"I've just come here. The house was like the tree the shingles all rotten, but the beams were sound. Those beams were hewn out of the forest two hundred and fifty years ago."
"Gracious!" said Janet. "And how old is the tree?"
"I should say about a hundred. I suppose it wouldn't care to admit it."
"How do you know?" she inquired.
"Oh, I'm very intimate with trees. I find out their secrets."
"It's your house!" she exclaimed, somewhat appalled by the discovery.
"Yes--yes it is," he answered, looking around at it and then in an indescribably comical manner down at his clothes. His gesture, his expression implied that her mistake was a most natural one.
"Excuse me, I thought--" she began, blushing hotly, yet wanting to laugh again.
"I don't blame you--why shouldn't you?" he interrupted her. "I haven't got used to it yet, and there is something amusing about--my owning a house. When the parlour's finished I'll have to wear a stiff collar, I suppose, in order to live up to it."
Her laughter broke forth, and she tried to imagine him in a stiff collar....
But she was more perplexed than ever. She stood balancing on one foot, poised for departure.
"I ought to be going," she said, as though she had been paying him a formal visit.
"Don't hurry," he protested cordially. "Why hurry back to Hampton?"
"I never want to go back!" she cried with a vehemence that caused him to contemplate her anew, suddenly revealing the intense, passionate quality which had so disturbed Mr. Ditmar. She stood transformed. "I hate it!" she declared. "It's so ugly, I never want to see it again."
"Yes, it is ugly," he confessed. "Since you admit it, I don't mind saying so.
But it's interesting, in a way." Though his humorous moods had delighted her, she felt subtly flattered because he had grown more serious.
