Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/192

 children, either of them. They both knew what they were doing, that it was a dangerous, even a reckless thing; and yet the very sense of excitement made the adventure as irresistible to the one as to the other.

For a little time they rode in silence, watching the dark hoofs of the horses as they sent up little showers of glittering dew from the knee-deep grass and clover, and presently as they turned out of the fields into the path that led into the birch woods, he laughed and said, "A penny for your thoughts."

Smiling, she replied, "I wouldn't sell them for millions."

"They must be very precious."

"Perhaps . . . precious to me, and to no one else."

"Not to any one at all. . . ."

"No. . . . I don't think they'd interest any one. They're not too cheerful."

At this he fell silent again, with an air of brooding and disappointment. For a time she watched him, and presently she said, "You mustn't sulk on a morning like this."

"I'm not sulking. . . . I was only . . . thinking."

She laughed. "A penny for your thoughts."

He did not laugh. He spoke with a sudden intensity. "They, too, are worth a million . . . more than that . . . only I'll share them with you. I wouldn't share them with any one else."

At the sound of his voice, a silly wave of happiness swept through Olivia. She thought, "I'm being young and ridiculous and enjoying myself."

Aloud she said, "I haven't a penny, but if you'll trust me until to-morrow?"

And then he turned to her abruptly, the shyness gone and in its place an emotion close to irritation and anger. "Why buy them?" he asked. "You know well enough what they