Free The Handsome Road by Gwen Bristow

a voice calling her name, and there was a flutter in her throat as she looked around and saw Denis riding through his cotton toward her.
    Ann drew back on the bridle and waited for him to reach the highway. How splendid he looked as he rode among the high blossoming cotton plants. Denis was tall, with a body all compact bone and muscle, broad shoulders, narrow waist, long hard legs. He wore neither coat nor hat, and his reddish sun-bleached hair blew merrily in the wind above his strong aquiline face, the modeling of which was accented by the line of beard trimmed to razor-thinness down each side of his face and only widening a trifle where it met the jawline.
    “This is luck!” Denis exclaimed as he joined her. “How are you, and where are you going?”
    “Fine, and I’m not going anywhere,” she returned. Denis regarded her with frank pleasure, and thinking how different this was from the lecherous look of Gilday she thought she had never realized before what a thoroughly decent person Denis was. He was saying,
    “You look perfectly lovely, and cool as ice-cream.”
    “Thank you.” She smiled with more admiration of him than she would have liked for him to guess. “And thank you,” she added, “for the roses you sent this morning. They’re lovely.”
    They were riding together at a leisurely pace along the road. “I looked out of the window and saw them as the sun was coming up,” said Denis, “and they looked like you.”
    “What have you been doing?” she asked.
    “Seeing to the cotton. It’s opening faster than usual. How’s your father’s new overseer?”
    “He’s perfectly abominable,” Ann said with an inward shudder. “I’m going to tell Jerry and father I don’t like him. Are you—” she fumbled for a subject removed from Gilday—“are you getting your cypress cut in spite of the fever scare?”
    “Oh yes. There wasn’t very much fever, and it’s over now. I was very sorry about it.”
    “So was I,” said Ann. “I felt a little bit responsible in a way. I met that Upjohn girl in the park the day you stopped to order the signs put up, and I told her about the work, and yesterday when I saw her at Ardeith she told me her brothers had died in the camp.”
    “But that wasn’t your fault, Ann!”
    “No, but I felt dreadful all the same. I wanted to ask you if you knew where she lived. Maybe she’s in want, or something.”
    “Don’t bother about it,” Denis said soothingly. “I know she’s not in want. I paid indemnity to the families of all the men who died.”
    “You did?” she exclaimed with admiring astonishment. “Oh dear, you make me feel so much better! That’s really marvelous of you, Denis. Not many men are so charitable.”
    But praise always embarrassed Denis and with a deprecating little laugh he switched the conversation. “Anyway, the fever’s passed and I’ll get the cypress cut before the fogs set in. I’m glad to have sold that timber. Now I can put the land into rice.”
    “You’re very astute,” she observed, thinking how few men of Denis’ youth could be trusted with the responsibility of a plantation like Ardeith. Most of them would have been glad to let the banks take care of it while they put on airs at watering-places.
    “Not astute,” he returned smiling, “just ambitious. Here we are,” he added, as they reached the gates of Ardeith. “Come on in for awhile.”
    She agreed, and their horses entered the avenue. Ann felt unreasonably happy. Denis’ cool self-assurance was so refreshing compared to the formal insincerity of most young gentlemen. She looked with increasing approval at his lean young figure and patrician face. They reached the house, and he held her horse while she dismounted. The air was thick with the fragrance of gardenias blooming around the steps. Denis picked one for her and she thrust it into the buttonhole of her lapel.
    “You’re very lovely,” he said, half under his breath lest Plato hear him.
    She smiled.