Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/42

 and morose side, but that day he was light hearted and cheerful. A good horse under him, a pretty girl beside him, and all about him that back country he inarticulately loved,—what more could a man want? And after awhile he threw back his head and began to sing softly:

He had a fair baritone voice, and when he had finished he glanced at Kay. He was astounded to see tears in her eyes.

"I never did think I could sing," he said whimsically, "but I didn't think I was as bad as all that!"

She was furious at herself, and yet she was helpless. How could she tell him that it was not his absurd song that had made her cry: that he had the strange power to stir in her emotions so profound that they shook her?

"It's the wind in my eyes," she told him. And maybe he believed her, but he sang no more that day.

They found the horses, scattered over a valley, and lunched before they wrangled them. And curiously enough the one disharmony of the day came then. After the meal she lighted a cigarette, and he reached calmly over and took it away from her.

"Don't be absurd," she said. "Everybody smokes nowadays."

"Not ladies. You leave that for the other sort."

"But nice women, ladies, do smoke nowadays, Tom."

"Not out here," he said firmly.

She thought a moment, put her case away. After all, why spoil the perfect day? And she had called him by his first name. Had he noticed it? Did he mind? Apparently not.

They had lunched by the creek, and now he rolled himself a cigarette and surveyed the panorama of mountain and valley before them.