Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/41

 It was a day to dream of. Tom was on his best behavior, soft-voiced, solicitous, southern.

"Comfortable?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Stirrups all right?"

"Perfectly."

"Then let's go."

Just what impulse had actuated him that morning it is hard to say. Perhaps he had genuinely missed her the day before. Perhaps it was only a matter of pride. Bill, reading a mail order catalogue the night before, had raised his head when Tom came in, said: "Haven't seen your lady friend around today. Not sick, is she?" and promptly dodged under the table.

"Not as sick as you'll look if you'll come out of there," said Tom dangerously.

Perhaps it was, like so much that he did, a gesture of pure bravado. But whatever was the reason, having made his point he was chivalrous, kindly, even tender.

"Want to kinda watch your step here. Trail's bad," or, after they had climbed to the high upland meadows and his big gray, the Miller, broke into a lope,—

"Going too fast for you?"

"I like it."

"There's no hurry. We've got all day."

She hugged that thought to her as they cantered along. All day. All day. All day.

Although the plains had already dried under the August sun, the upland meadows were still lush with grass. They passed salt licks, huge brown trampled nests in which the square white salt cakes lay like eggs, and around which the cattle stood or lay, eying them indifferently as they moved by. There was still larkspur and lupin, and here and there the paintbrush. Magpies darted back and forth, small tawny marmots watched them from the rocks, and Kay's heart kept pace with the beat of the horses' hoofs. All day. All day. All day.

Tom too was happy, for him. As she knew him better she was to learn that he had a black streak in him, a bitter