Page:Son of the wind.djvu/115

RV 103 ble, and, like the clipping "Fate," with shears in her hand, but drawn near to the window and the light was a sewing-machine over which flowed a cascade of stuff, heavy and white; and moving this through the machine, manipulating it delicately, Blanche Rader sat. Her head was bent. He saw the greater mass of her hair like a shadow, the light on her forehead, and the long, dim line of her throat as she leaned sidewise. She was very intent, seeing no one, all her wits apparently stitching into that sewing. He smiled. Anything more gentle, and accessible, one could not imagine. But the figure in the background made him wary. He had had an impression of it as an interfering element. He reached in his pocket and found a scrap of paper and a pencil. Resting this on his address-book he wrote, "Eight-thirty to-morrow, horseback. Will you?"

He went up to the window, pressed the card against the glass and drummed his fingers softly on the pane.

The machine stopped, ran back a little way. She looked up quickly, and though he must have been but a black figure against daylight to her, he saw she recognized him immediately; then her eyes fixed on the white paper. She was a while about it. He could not tell whether she was re-reading his message to get a better understanding of it, or whether she was