SON OF THE WIND
now. But how could he make you understand what he had seen?" He looked at her hard. There was something equivocal in her expression.
"I—I don't know how, exactly, but he did."
"Well, it is a fact," he said. "I have got the horse. So, that's understood, isn't it? All right! Now will you tell me what that has to do with my marrying your daughter?"
"With your marrying?" She seemed confounded with that simple fact which had been accepted in his mind so completely that he thought it had been his intention for ever.
"Yes, didn't she tell you?"
"No—yes—at least she did say something about it, but Bert said you had only let her think it because you wanted—"
"Well, of course! He would like to marry her himself!"
"But he said you wanted—"
"In Heaven's name," he burst out exasperated, "can't a man want two things? You seem to think it's impossible I should care about her. I'd like to know why. She's beautiful, isn't she? She's a most extraordinary sort of girl, isn't she?"
He wasn't sure that Mrs. Rader had fully taken in his revelation of Ferrier's treachery, or of his own double dealing. If she had, she seemed to set it at
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