"I couldn't help being such a baby," she said. "I really did feel as if I'd got to the end of all things."
"Doesn't it feel like a horrible slump back to earth now?"
"It hardly seemed like earth when you picked me up and ran with me."
Dick turned quickly. But her eyes were frank as Slicker's own.
"We are going to be late for dinner," she said. "And I'm hungry already. You haven't got anything edible about you, have you?"
"Only tobacco, I'm sorry to say. But the worst of it is over. Did you wring your skirts out? Let me do it." He did it with a serene self-possession which made her laugh again.
"How many varied chores do you police have to do through your time of service?" she asked.
"Why—I think it is as well they are not tabulated for us beforehand. It would take a brave man to face them in the bulk. It is a queer life, and we get inside some funny family histories. Are you warm now?" He took her hand. "I feel that this is partly my fault, you know," he said.
"Oh, no;" she smiled at him. "But it was so good of you to come."
She looked such a little thing with the wet crisping on her bright hair above the collar of his slicker and the glow of the cold on her cheeks. The touch and the look of her moved him powerfully. Then he stooped to the fire again. For the moment he could not trust himself to speak.
But Jennifer chattered gaily. The adventurous spirit in her delighted in even such a small thing as this, and she talked until presently her tongue strayed on Ducane's name.
"I hope he won't be anxious. He was with Robison, and he didn't see me go."
"Are you sure?" Dick looked round suddenly.
"Why, certainly. I called in to him through the dining-room window, but he didn't hear. He was looking over one of your sketches, I think. An animal—it looked like a buffalo. And Robison was scowling so."
