Juliana approached the stile, walking briskly now.
She was halted by surprising speech from this rather cheaply debonair creature who looked so nearly like a gentleman and yet so plainly was not.
"Wanted to be off with 'em, didn't you ?" Dave was saying brightly; "off and over the edge of the world, all foot-loose and free as wind, going over strange roads and lying by night under the stars." "What ?" demanded Juliana sharply.
She studied the fellow's face for the first time.

He was preening his yellow moustache and flashing a challenge to her from half-shut eyes.
"Small-towners bound to feel it," he continued, unconscious of any sharpness in Juliana's "What!" "They want to be off and over the edge of things, but they don't dare--haven't the nerve.

You'd like to, but you don't dare.

You know you don't!" Juliana almost smiled.

The fellow's face, as she paused beside him at the stile, was set with sheer impudence, yet this was not wholly unattractive.