Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 1 (1927-01).djvu/107

 that he was standing on a hilltop, but more glorious still, she was there also. She sat on a rock and smiled up into his face.

"Are you looking for someone?" she asked demurely.

"I was," he chuckled as he threw himself on the ground beside her, "but I am not now."

"You mean you grew tired of looking?"

"You are partly right," he said.

"I grew tired, went to sleep and then I found her."

"Well, you have come at a most opportune moment," she cried gayly, "for it is nearly noon and I have brought a lunch with me fit for the gods."

"And prepared by a goddess," he finished.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"It depends on one's point of view," she murmured roguishly. "The hamper was packed by Corinne, our colored cook who is so black she claims she never has to wash because her face never soils. She would, I fear, look rather out of place on high Olympus, besides being a terrible weight for Atlas to carry, for she weighs three hundred pounds."

Hugh smiled. "Atlas didn't hold up Olympus," he corrected, "he held up the world."

"Worse than Jesse James," she broke in.

"Don't change the subject in order that you need not admit your error," he said. "You* must acknowledge that if Atlas held up the world it would make very little difference to him in what particular locality Corinne wished to be."

She pouted deliciously.

Thus the meal progressed. Gradually conversation drifted into more serious channels, and they discussed literature, especially poetry.

"My favorite poem," she said, "is by Bourdillon:

He rose to his feet. "And mine also is about a road," he said tensely. "It is by Marie Van Vorst:

As he uttered the last word, he seized her in his arms.

"You are mine!" he cried softly, "all mine!"

But even as he drew her unresisting to him, everything began to grow blurred and hazy. The next moment he opened his eyes. Randall Crane was bending over him.

"Breakfast," he said laconically.

"Hang it!" muttered Hugh irritably. "You've awakened me at the most beautiful moment of my dream. Serves me right for dealing with a peddler." In spite of everything, he tried to keep in good spirits, but his effort at humor was rather half-hearted.

"I am sorry I had to disturb you," said Crane whimsically, "but I'm going away for a few days, out to the country to show a few of my samples to a prospective customer."

At Randall Crane's words, Hugh's heart turned to ice. That meant he wouldn't be able to see the Dream-Girl for several days. He was very miserable. How was he to live? And then an even greater worry gripped him. Suppose Randall Crane were to die. What, would happen then? He would lose his Dream-Girl forever. He wondered how old Crane really was.

"I say," he said finally, "can't I go out to the country with you?"

"To help carry my samples?" asked Randall Crane.