"Oh, very well, if it pleases you better so." He jumped up to cut the discussion short. "Send it out after us. And when will you have the horses--in half an hour?" Mrs. Ball was uncomfortably conscious that her fine straw-colored hair had come out of curl in the wind, there, under the trees. With the indomitable spirit of woman in pursuit of beauty, she was determined to borrow the chambermaid's tongs, and restore the fuzziness with which she had started forth. It was essential, therefore, that she should take time as well as herself by the forelock. She hurried Val up-stairs. "What a fascinating man!" she said, with a sigh, as she stood before the glass. "Val, dear, I hope you won't lose your heart to Mr. Gano." "Oh, I've got past that," said the girl, with a misleading air of frankness. "Well, I'm relieved to hear you say so. There's something about him very magnetic to my way of thinking--positively irresistible." She sighed again. "But he'd make a shocking bad husband, that's one comfort." "_Comfort!_" Val laughed a little hysterically. "Well, now, what _have_ I said?" But Val was hatted and gloved, and ran down-stairs. Ethan was smoking in the porch. "Where are those funny friends of yours?" he said. She was up in arms at once. "You always say my friends are funny." "And so they are, dear child." "They're not a bit funnier than my relations." "Oh, they don't compare." "How long before the horses will be ready?" said Val, loftily, as one who chafes at a delay, making meanwhile a rapid calculation as to how long Mrs. Ball's work of restoration might be counted on to keep her up-stairs. "They'll be here presently," said Ethan, throwing away his cigarette. "Let's go and see." Val led the way round to the back of the hotel. "My friends are perfectly delightful, but I don't mean to let them monopolize every minute of our time." He looked at her with an odd expression, and then turned away his face. Her heart gave a great leap. They went on to the stable. Wilbur was there. The buckle on Gano's saddle-girth, he said, had got bent. While it was being taken off Ethan moved about, looking in sheds and open doors. "What are you hunting for?" Val called after him. "A place for you to sit down. They'll be some minutes repairing that thing." "You'd better go back to the house," said Wilbur, who was showing the man how to get the metal straight without breaking the tongue of the buckle. "No," said Val; "I shall go in there, and up those cobwebby stairs, and sit on the hay by the door that opens into mid-air." As she walked towards the barn-door it seemed to her that her whole existence depended upon whether Ethan followed her.