"You've done it, then."
"Strikes me that I've done my duty in the matter."
"You have--admirably," she scoffed.
"It's up to Di now--if you should take a fancy for entertaining your highwayman again while you're fishing."
"It's not likely that I'll ever see him again."
"I daresay not." He rose and looked across the rushing water. "There's just one thing I stick out for. Regardless of your interest in him--no matter what might happen--you wouldn't let things get on another footing until he has proved his innocence--absolutely and beyond question."
"Isn't that rather an unnecessary condition? I'm not in the habit of throwing myself at the heads of strangers who are merely casually polite to me."
He took in her sweet supple slimness, the fine throat line beneath the piquant lifted chin which mocked his caution, the little imps of raillery that flashed from the dark live eyes. In spite of a passionate craving for the adventure of life she had a good deal of reticence and an abundant self-respect. He felt that he had said more than enough already.
"Quite right, my dear. I withdraw my condition."
"It's one I would insist upon myself--if there were any likelihood of any need of it--which there isn't."
An easy-going man, he did not cross bridges till he came to them. His wife had persuaded him that Moya needed a talking to, but he was glad to be through with it.
"Hang the scamp, anyhow!" he laughed. "Maybe he'll break his neck on one of those outlaw bronchos he's so fond of riding. Maybe they'll put him safely away in prison, where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Maybe, as you say, he'll have the bad taste to prefer Joyce to my little Irish wild rose, in which case he'll be put in his place at the proper time."
"It's even possible," she added with a murmur of half-embarrassed laughter, "that if he honored one with an offer--which it has never entered his head to do--one might regretfully decline with thanks."
"Amen! In the meantime God lead your grace by the hand, as old Bacon says." He brought his heels together, bowed over her fingers, and kissed them with exaggerated old-fashioned gallantry.
"Who's being romantic now?" she wanted to know gayly.