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 to read them a moral lecture, but that was of no avail. She was, after all, an animal, and it was folly to pretend that she was not.

Dare smiled tentatively, inquiringly, waiting for her to speak.

She looked down at Sundown's ears. "I suppose that is what I would have done, if I had been a man. Just once."

He shook his head. "The 'just once' would have been like diving into a sea in which you would have to sink or swim. I hope you don't mean just once literally, for that would be as good as letting me drown."

She was too proud to explain, and she would not raise false hopes. "We must forget that it happened," she finally announced.

He was bewildered. "You mean, you can forget!"

She made no reply.

"It was you who said that the fulfilment is no more disgraceful than the desire."

At that moment she hated him for his masculine obtuseness.

She gave Sundown's head a jerk. "I'm glad you're going to Japan," she said, and dug her heels into the horse's sides. A moment later she was lost to view in a cloud of dust.

Like some parched and hungry wanderer who had dreamt of orchards, only to wake up under a bruising hail of apples and pears that startled him into