This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SON OF THE WIND

urged. He looked up like a begging boy who feels that his plea is already half won.

She hesitated, but her quick eyes continued shrewdly to consider him.

His black hair was powdered gray as a wig with dust. Dust clung to his thick eyebrows, and dust and sweat of many miles was on his face, but the fact that it was an attractive face was not obscured. The eyes were frank and persuasive; the mouth was cautious; the neck sat squarely on the shoulders, firm as if riveted there. Body and head alike bore a suggestion of the Greek—not of the splendid statued heroes, but of the light lads of the Parthenon frieze, astride of horses, and inviting fate with brave, objective eyes.

That disarming youthfulness, that outward gaze which seemed so sure of triumphs, were making inroads upon the resolution of the woman with the broom. She hovered at the cross-road of decision, while a sort of unready sweetness struggled through her formal expression. "I am going to like her," Carron thought, and thinking, involuntarily smiled at her.

"Well, I suppose you can stay," she said reluctantly, as though the smile had somehow clenched the matter to her mind.

He was out of the buggy before she could have

15