She flashed over him a candid, amber gaze that singularly resembled her father's. “You are not at all acquisitive,” she informed him; “and it's perfectly evident that you are the poorest sort of chauffeur. You drive very nicely,” she continued with severe justice. “One could trust you in a crisis; but it is little things that make a chauffeur, and in the little things,” she paused to indicate a globe of cigarette smoke that instantly dissolved, “you are like--that.” He moodily acknowledged to himself the truth of her observation, but such acumen he considered entirely unnecessary in one so young; he did not think it becoming. He contrasted her, greatly to her detriment, with the elusive charm of Eliza Dreen; the girl before him was too vivid, too secure; he felt instinctively that she was entirely free from the bonds, the conventions, that held the majority of girls within recognized, convenient limits. Her liberty of mind upset a balance to which both heredity and experience had accustomed him. The entire absence of a tacitly recognized masculine superiority subconsciously made him uneasy, and he took refuge in imponderable silence. “Besides,” she continued airily, “you are too physically normal to think, all normal people are stupid.... You are like one of those wood creatures in the classic pastorals.” A faint grin overspread Anthony's countenance; among so many unintelligible words he had regained his poise--this was the usual, the familiar feminine chatter, endless, inconsequential, by means of which all girls presented the hopeless tangle of their thoughts and emotions; its tone had deceived him only at the beginning. In the stillness which followed other blackbirds, equally within shot, winged over the apple tree; the shadow of the boughs crept farther and farther down the road. She rose vigorously. “I must get back,” she announced. She remained silent during the return, but Anthony, with the sense of direction cultivated during countless days in the fields and swales, found the way without hesitation. When she left the car he slowly backed and circled to the carriage house. As he splashed body and wheels with water, polished the metal, dried and dusted the cushions, the crisp, cool voice of Annot Hardinge rang in his ears. He divined something of her isolated existence, her devotion to the absorbed, kindly man who was her father, and speculated upon her matured youth. She recalled his sister Ellie, for whose inflexible integrity he cherished a deep-seated admiration; but both left him cold before the poignant tenderness of Eliza... Eliza, the unforgettable, who loved him. XXXVI