won't mind my just asking why you haven't been out riding the
last two Sundays?"

He came to a stop and waited, feeling very warm and awkward, the
perspiration starting in tiny beads on his forehead. She did not
speak immediately, and he stepped across the room and raised the
window higher.

"I have been riding," she answered; "in other directions."

"But why...?" He failed somehow to complete the question. "Go
ahead and be frank with me," he urged. "Just as frank as I am
with you. Why didn't you ride in the Piedmont hills? I hunted
for you everywhere.

"And that is just why." She smiled, and looked him straight in
the eyes for a moment, then dropped her own. "Surely, you
understand, Mr. Harnish."

He shook his head glumly.

"I do, and I don't. I ain't used to city ways by a long shot.
There's things one mustn't do, which I don't mind as long as I
don't want to do them."

"But when you do?" she asked quickly.

"Then I do them." His lips had drawn firmly with this affirmation
of will, but the next instant he was amending the statement "That
is, I mostly do. But what gets me is the things you mustn't do