"You don't know a thing about it!" Evadna stopped rocking, and sat up very straight in the chair. "And even if that were true, is that any reason why he should AVOID me? I'M not threatening his life!"
"He doesn't avoid you. And you're acting sillier than I ever supposed you could. He can't be in two places at once, can he? Now, let's be sensible, chicken. Grant--"
"Oh--h!" There was a peculiar, sliding inflection upon that word, which made Miss Georgie's hand shut into a fist.
"Grant"--Miss Georgie put a defiant emphasis upon it--"is doing all he can to get to the bottom of that jumping business. There's something crooked about it, and he knows it, and is trying to--"
"I know all that." Evadna interrupted without apology.
"Well, of course, if you DO--then I needn't tell you how silly it is for you to complain of being neglected, when you know his time is all taken up with trying to ferret out a way to block their little game. He feels in a certain sense responsible--"
"Yes, I know. He thinks he should have been watching somebody or something instead of--of being with me. He took the trouble to make that clear to me, at least!" Evadna's eyes were very blue and very bright, but there was no look of an angel in her face.
Miss Georgie pressed her lips together tightly for a minute. When she spoke, she was cheerfully impersonal as to tone and manner.
"Chicken, you're a little goose. The man is simply crazy about you, and harassed to death with this ranch business. Once that's settled--well, you'll see what sort of a lover he can be!"
"Thank you so much for holding out a little hope and encouragement, my dear!" Evadna, by the way, looked anything but thankful; indeed, she seemed to resent the hope and the encouragement as a bit of unwarranted impertinence. She glanced toward the door as if she meditated an immediate departure, but ended by settling back in the chair and beginning to rock again.
"It's a nasty, underhand business from start to finish," said Miss Georgie, ignoring the remark. "It has upset everybody--me included, and I'm sure it isn't my affair. It's just one of those tricky cases that you know is rotten to the core, and yet you can't seem to get hold of anything definite. My dad had one or two experiences with old Baumberger--and if ever there was a sly old mole of a man, he's one.
"Did you ever take after a mole, chicken? They used to get in our garden at home. They burrow underneath the surface, you know, and one never sees them. You can tell by the ridge of loose earth that they're there, and if you think you've located Mr. Mole, and jab a stick down, why--he's somewhere else, nine times in ten. I used to call them Baumbergers, even then. Dad," she finished reminiscently, "was always jabbing his law stick down where the earth seemed to move--but he never located old Baumberger, to my knowledge."