SON OF THE WIND
permit not so much as a finger-tip. This arbitrary distance she imposed between them kept an uneasy fog of distrusts in his heart. A thought came, like a black shadow. "How about Ferrier?" he suddenly said.
She opened large eyes, as if to take in a presence so small to her mind that she could hardly see it. "Well, what of him?"
"Has he anything to say about—this?"
Humor was mixed with the disdain that lifted the corners of her mouth. "I should like to hear him! Why?" The resentment of outside interference, a tendency overquick in her, looked out at him. "Has mother said anything to you about him?"
"Not a word," he declared hastily. "I only thought from the way he behaved the night we played whist—"
"How did he behave? I didn't notice him."
Carron had a very clear memory of exactly the way Ferrier had looked, backing down the road in the half moon's light, sending back his warning. "Like a man who has a claim."
"Well, he has not!" she said indignantly, but still with an impulse to smile, as if she could scarcely take the matter seriously. "Poor Bert! I'm afraid mother is a little responsible for the way he feels; she likes him. He's so harmless." She smiled under-
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