“Tired, perhaps,” she answered, “but exhilarated too. I should like to be there now. I should like to go back this minute — if someone would take me.” And, though she said it lightly, there was a meaning in her voice he apparently chose to disregard. It was as if she knew his secret. “Will you take me — someday soon?”
The direct question, spoken by those determined little lips, was impossible to ignore. He looked close into her face as he helped her from the saddle with a spring that brought her a moment half into his arms. “Someday — soon. I will,” he said with emphasis, “when you are — ready.” The pallor in her face, and a certain expression in it he had not known before, startled him. “I think you have been overdoing it,” he added, with a tone in which authority and love were oddly min
