Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/140

 pretty close lately. I'm liable to get my time if I don't look out."

He knew, and he knew that Edith knew, why Spiser was "riding herd" on him, but he could not resist the temptation to boast to Edith of his attachment to Nan, even while more than dimly aware of the stab it gave her.

He was as sure of Edith and her devotion as of the rising of the sun and, while he enjoyed it and would have missed it, he accepted it with the same complacency with which he accepted the benefits of that luminary.

Yet after he had nodded a careless good-by, the reproach in her eyes prompted him to turn impulsively and call after her:

"Oh, Edie, wait a minute!"

He rode back and said with more of the old familiar voice and manner than he had displayed:

"Say, Edie, they're talkin' of a baile at Las Rubertas; will you go?"

Glad surprise shone in her face.

"Why, yes, Ben, I'd love to."

But it faded when he said:

"We can stop for Nan and all go together."