The Highgrader

"I'll tell you a secret, guardy," whispered Moya gayly. "You're a hundred years younger than either of them."

"I wish my glass told me so."

"Fiddlesticks! Youth is in the heart. Mr. Verinder has never been young and Captain Kilmeny has forgotten how to be."

"I fancy Ned would be willing to learn how again if he had the proper teacher."

She gave his arm a little squeeze. "You dear old matchmaker."

"Heaven forbid! I'm merely inquiring, my dear."

"Oh, I see--your in-loco-parentis duty."

"Exactly. So it isn't going to be Ned?"

She looked across the turbid moonlit river before she answered. "I don't think so."

"Nor Verinder?"

"Goodness, no!" A little ripple of laughter flowed from her lips before she added: "He's changed his mind. It's Joyce he wants now."

Farquhar selected a cigar from the case. "Hm! Sure you didn't change it for him?"

A dimple flashed into her cheeks. "I may have helped a little, but not half as much as Joyce."

"That young woman is a born flirt," Lord Farquhar announced, his beard and the lower part of his face in the sudden glow of the lighted match. "Upon my word, I saw her making eyes at your highwayman the night we had him here."

There was a moment's silence before she answered. "Anybody could see that he was interested in her."

"It doesn't matter to me who interests him, but I can't have any of my wards being romantic over a Dick Turpin," he replied lightly.

She was standing in the shadow, so that he could not see the dye sweep into her cheeks.

"I'm afraid he is going to disappoint you. He's not a highwayman at all."

"Did he tell you so?"

"No. But I know it."

"Looks to me as if he might make a good one. The fellow is cool as a cucumber and afraid of nothing on two legs or four."

"You forget he is India's cousin."

"No, I'm remembering that. His father had a devil of a temper and his mother was as wild as an unbroken colt when I met her."

"They weren't thieves, were they?" she flashed.

He gave her his frank smile. "You like this young man, Moya?"

"Yes. Why shouldn't I?"

"Why not--if you don't like him too well?"

"So that's why you came out here--sent by Lady Farquhar to scold me--and I thought you had come because you like to be with me."

"One reason doesn't preclude the other."

"I've known for several days she had it on her mind--ever since we saw Mr. Kilmeny on Sunbeam Creek."

"Come; let us reason together," he invited cheerfully. "We'll sit on the end of the wharf and dangle our legs while your guardian finishes his cigar and does his duty by you."