He pulled the trap along and she walked beside him leading the pony. She spoke kind words to the creature, apologised to it and told it to cheer up. Maynard had leisure to observe her and quickly perceived the nature of her mind and that outspeaking quality that had occasioned argument. Ac their present meeting it took the form of a sort of familiarity that impressed Lawrence as strange from a woman to a man she had never met before. "I was wishful to see you, because Johnny likes you. But he's not much of a hand at sizing up people. Perhaps if he was, he wouldn't be so silly fond of me." This was no challenge, but merely the utterance of her honest opinion. Nothing of the coquette appeared in Dinah. She had received his succour with gratitude, but expressed no dismay at the poor figure she cut on their meeting. "He's a good chap," he said, "and terrible fond of you, miss." Thus unconsciously he fell into her own direct way of speech. He did not feel that he was talking to a stranger; and that not because he had already heard so much about her, but because Dinah created an atmosphere of directness between herself and all men and women. She recognised no barriers until the other side raised them. There was a frank goodwill about her that never hid itself. She was like a wild thing that has not yet fallen in with man, or learned to distrust him. "Are you a chap with a pretty good judgment of your fellow creatures?" she asked. "You've got a thoughtful sort of face as if you might be." He smiled and looked at her. "Your fellow creatures make you thoughtful," he answered. "Don't they? Never you said a truer word! Your life all depends upon the people in it seemingly." "They make or mar it most times." "Yes, they're the only difficult thing about it." "If we could live it all to ourselves, it might be easy enough." "So I think when I look at a squirrel. But I dare say, if he could talk, he'd tell us the other squirrels was a nuisance, and cadged his food and worried him." "I dare say he would." "I'm one of the lucky ones," she said. "Ah!" "Yes. If I could put my finger on a trouble, which I can't, I should find it was of my own making." "Like to-day?" "This don't amount to a trouble--just an accident with nobody the worse. Only a cranky mind would call this a trouble." "You might have broke your neck, however." "But I didn't, nor yet the pony's knees--my luck." "You may have marked your cheek for life." "And what does that matter? Suppose I'd knocked half my teeth down my throat: that would have been something to worrit about." "You're the hopeful sort. Perhaps that's your best luck--that you're built to take a bright view, miss." "Perhaps it is. Aren't you?" "We may be built to one pattern and then life come along and unbuild us." "I wouldn't let life unbuild me." He did not answer, and presently she asked him a question. "What d'you think of Johnny Bamsey, Mr. Maynard?"