"I suppose I was rather a favorite at home," Edgar owned with humorous modesty. "For all that, I don't feel myself quite up to Miss Grant's standard."
"I didn't notice any assumption of superiority on her part."
"Oh, no," said Edgar. "She doesn't require to assume it; the superiority's obvious; that's the trouble. One hesitates about offering her the small change of compliments that generally went well at home. If you try to say something smart, she looks at you as if she were amused, not at what you said, but at you. There's an embarrassing difference between the things."
"The remedy's simple. Don't try to be smart."
"You would find that easy," Edgar retorted. "Now, in my opinion, Miss Grant is intellectual, which is more than anybody ever accused you of being, but I suspect you would make more progress with her than I could do. Extremes have a way of meeting, and perhaps it isn't really curious that your direct and simple views should now and then recommend you to a more complex person."
"I notice a couple of beasts straying yonder," George said dryly.
Edgar rode off to drive the animals up to the herd. George, he thought, was painfully practical; only such a man could break off the discussion of a girl like Miss Grant to interest himself in the movements of a wandering steer. For all that, the beasts must be turned, and they gave Edgar a hard gallop through willow scrub and tall grass before he could head them off and afterward overtake the drove.
CHAPTER IX
GEORGE TURNS REFORMER
George was working in the summer fallow a few days after his return from Grant's homestead, when a man rode across the plowing and pulled up his horse beside him. He was on the whole a handsome fellow, well mounted and smartly dressed, but there was a hint of hardness in his expression. George recognized him as the landlord of a hotel at the settlement.