She instantly clambered back with a little feminine shriek, and ejaculated: "Well, of all things!" and then, fixing her blue annoyed eyes on the stranger, asked impatiently, "Why couldn't I go there by the road 'n the wagon?
I could manage to hold on and keep in." "Because I reckon you'd find it too pow'ful hot waitin' here till we got round to ye." There was no doubt it was very hot; the radiation from the baking roadway beating up under her parasol, and pricking her cheekbones and eyeballs like needles.

She gave a fastidious little shudder, furled her parasol, gathered her skirts still tighter, faced about, and said, "Go on, then." The man slipped backwards into the ranks of stalks, parting them with one hand, and holding out the other as if to lead her.

But she evaded the invitation by holding her tightly-drawn skirt with both hands, and bending her head forward as if she had not noticed it.

The next moment the road, and even the whole outer world, disappeared behind them, and they seemed floating in a choking green translucent mist.
But the effect was only momentary; a few steps further she found that she could walk with little difficulty between the ranks of stalks, which were regularly spaced, and the resemblance now changed to that of a long pillared conservatory of greenish glass, that touched all objects with its pervading hue.

She also found that the close air above her head was continually freshened by the interchange of currents of lower temperature from below,--as if the whole vast field had a circulation of its own,--and that the adobe beneath her feet was gratefully cool to her tread.