CHAPTER XII
I
O ne Friday night in the third week in September Valerie and Dane worked alone. The front door was open, and there stole in to refresh the stuffy office the soft fragrance of an irresistible night. All day long Valerie had shot envious glances over the top of the whiting on the window across the river at the spreading swamp veiled with the enchantments of spring. And at intervals Dane too had looked out at the river and the swamp, and had thought of friendly little creeks he knew, and plaintive lagoons he knew, and pleasant backwaters he knew, and willow-girdled pools he knew where he craved to be with Valerie.
She leaned back in her chair after she had finished editing a letter from a farmer, and thought of the wonderful week they had had. Dane had brilliantly frustrated two moves on the part of the enemy, had forestalled them in another, and had given George Rhodes some valuable hints to follow up. It was now generally known who it was who was conducting the lively campaign waged by this youngster among journals, and every post brought them back comments on it. Dane’s articles on the North were often copied in full, the party heads were quoting some of his most pungent criticisms of the Ward government, and altogether the eyes of their little world were upon them. This in itself was pleasantly thrilling. But it was nothing to the wonder that was going on inside themselves, gathering intensity from the curbs they put upon it.
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