Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/183

 silence, had troubled him until under this pretext he had come West.

Ben shifted restlessly during the conversation, giving only half attention to Edith, who made timid and despairing attempts to interest him.

"Shan't we better be going, Nan?" he interrupted in a tone of proprietorship which made Nan's color rise again as she saw Bob's eyes widen ever so slightly in surprise.

"Perhaps; obviously, the dance is over." She took the scarf he handed her, with an embarrassed laugh.

Bob helped Edith find her wrap and offered her his arm with a gentle deference which made her everlastingly his friend and ally.

There was no longer any mystery to Bob about Ben's constraint, his unbending manner, his downright rudeness. He was in love with Nan—he was childishly jealous and unable to conceal it. And Nan—did she care—was she seriously attached to this crude, picturesque man of the mesas and prairies?

With all her adventurous spirit and romantic notions, he always had thought of Nan as particularly level-headed, incapable of