Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/32

 When she went out Herbert was in the hall. He stared at her with mild astonishment.

"I thought you were safely tucked in bed."

"I've been looking around. It's lovely, isn't it?"

"If you say so, it is," said Herbert, slightly warmed by his night cap. And as she turned on the stairs he was gazing up at her, looking rather less tidy and more human than she had ever seen him.

She had quite a good room. Nora had already unpacked her traveling case and placed its gold fittings on the bureau; her dressing gown and slippers were laid out, her thin nightgown folded on the bed. In the bathroom—there were bathrooms, of course. Old Lucius was nothing if not thorough—her mother was bathing, and the delicate odor of violet bath salts had penetrated into the upper hall.

But Kay noted none of these things. She was ascertaining if her windows looked toward the bunk house. Which they did.

If, lying sleepless in her bed that night, she wondered whether she had made any impression whatever on McNair, a glance into that untidy building would have undeceived her. Tom slept the sleep of those who have been up since dawn, and slept it to the accompaniment of the snores, groans and guttural mutterings of other tired men.

He had put the car away, taken a glance around barn and corrals and then stamped in glumly. His irritation had returned. In the dining room of the bunk house, which served as a sitting room between meals, he found three or four of the men playing. They looked up, but he said nothing, hung his hat on the nail over his chaps and roping gloves, and stamped across to the door into the long, dormitory-like bedroom.

"Well?" somebody called.

"Well what?"

"Did you wrangle them?"

"I did, and if any lousy son of a gun wakes me at daylight tomorrow I'll"

"Wait a minute, Tom! What's the girl like?"

"Like any other girl. She's a Dowling. That's enough!"