Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/80

 Who could blame him, if after weeks, maybe months of all this, he broke over? How many men she knew did not drink, even on occasion drink too much? She thought back resentfully to her life at home. There was the night of her coming-out ball, when Hilary Randall had drunk too much champagne punch and had had to be put to bed in the house.

Nobody had made a fuss about that. She had been supposed not to know, but she had known. And Hilary himself had seemed later to think it rather a joke.

After a long time she lighted a match and looked at the small diamond studded watch on her dresser. It was two o'clock. He must be very close. And soon after that she heard him coming in. She had made no plan, got nowhere, but the thought that the slow beat of the Miller's hoofs might be taking him out of her life was too much for her. Clad as she was she went down the stairs, opened the front door and ran toward the barn. She could hear him working there, unsaddling, turning the tired horse out into the night corral. As she got closer she could see him, saddle and bridle in his arms, staring in her direction.

"Tom!"

"Yes?" He dropped the saddle and came toward her. "What are you doing out here at this time of night?"

"I heard your horse, and I"

"What's that got to do with it? Look here, girl, you go back to bed and quit worrying about me. I'm not worth it."

"I have worried, awfully."

"I'm not worth it. I'm telling you."

"But if I don't think that, Tom?"

He hesitated, glancing toward the house. "Maybe we'd better talk this out," he said. "But not here. Too many open windows, and I don't want to make any more trouble for you. I guess I've done my bit!"

Even then, however, he hesitated as he looked about him. If he soiled everything he touched, as they seemed to think out here, he was not going to soil this girl. There was to be no chance of any misconception of this meeting, if it chanced to be seen in the starlight.