They rode side by side down the steep slope of the mound. The horses were eager to return, and once in the road their riders let them canter. Louise was ahead and as she came abreast of the Dixon ranch she reined in and waited. Her cheeks were still flushed, her eyes restless. She smiled with a blend of humor and frustration which Dare mistook for regret. In his face she saw a reply to her own countenance, a reply which took the form of a little plea for pardon, a plea grotesquely beside the point,—as if she hadn't manoeuvred the lapse from grace! Her frustration was physiological, the eternal waiting for an ecstasy which Keble and Dare could command at will, but which Fate still withheld from her. It was unfair and it was discouraging.
Dare drew up at her side. He was more handsome, more authoritative than ever, also more tender and humble than she would ever have guessed him capable of being. Yet also a little annoying. Men could be so insultingly sure of themselves. Here was a man who by all the signs ought to have been the man. She had assumed as much and behaved accordingly. But instead of bringing about the miracle, the duet for the sake of which she had been willing to risk Keble's dignity, he had merely achieved the old solo, with her as instrument. "Why can't they understand? Why don't they learn?" her outraged desires were crying in protest. She tried
