"Flatterer!" she countered brightly. "Have you been a whole year making pretty speeches, and must you keep it up now because you've got into the habit and since the pretty ladles of your travels are not here and I am? Aren't you a little bit ashamed of yourself? Aren't you afraid that you will create havoc by putting a lot of foolish ideas into a country girl's head?" He laughed at last, becoming suddenly the same old Red Reckless that he had always been, and swung down lightly from the saddle. Dropping Lady Lightfoot's reins to the ground he came to where Wanda sat and having stood over her a moment looking down into the clear eyes which were turned frankly up to him he made himself comfortable at her feet, stretching luxuriously in the warm grass. "It's great to be back, Wanda," he said musingly, with a deep sigh of content. "You are going to squander a little of your precious time on me, aren't you? I've been deucedly energetic all morning; now I'm just brimful of sunshine and laziness. So lazy that I want just to smoke and watch you and listen while you talk. You will have a whole lot to tell me about all the things you've been doing while I was away." [Illustration: "I want just to smoke and watch you and listen while you talk."] She gathered her knees into her clasped hands and smiled down upon the flaming red hair. Before he made his cigarette she found herself answering his questions, telling about her life during his absence. As she talked she saw his face only now and then when he turned a little to laugh up at her over some trifle that amused him. The story of this year of her life as she told it was a simple, homely little tale, a quiet pastoral of happy content. It had to do largely with herself and her work, with her failures and successes. But she mentioned both Garth and Sledge Hume. "Hume?" said Shandon, looking up quickly, this time with no laughter in his eyes. "Have you seen much of that man, Wanda?" "A good deal. He and father and Garth seem to have some kind of business together. Why?" "Because I don't like him," he told her emphatically. "I don't like to have you know a man like that."