The Desert of Wheat

"First--and--second?... You--you remembered both times!" he burst out, incredulously.

"Yes. I don't see how I could have helped remembering." Her laugh was low, musical, a little hurried, yet cool.

Dorn was not familiar with girls. He had worked hard all his life, there among those desert hills, and during the few years his father had allowed him for education. He knew wheat, but nothing of the eternal feminine. So it was impossible for him to grasp that this girl was not wholly at her ease. Her words and the cool little laugh suddenly brought home to Kurt the immeasurable distance between him and a daughter of one of the richest ranchers in Washington.

"You mean I--I was impertinent," he began, struggling between shame and pride. "I--I stared at you.... Oh, I must have been rude.... But, Miss Anderson, I--I didn't mean to be. I didn't think you saw me--at all. I don't know what made me do that. It never happened before. I beg your pa