She half lifted both hands to
him, apprehensively.
"You aren't going to tell me, are you," she asked, "that anything
dreadful has happened to Garry?"
Dumbly, but most reassuringly, Steve shook his head. From the top of
her hatless, wind-tossed, brown-crowned head to the tips of the
absurdly small boots tucked up beneath her, he scanned her slim body.
Barbara realized that he was trying to speak and finding the effort
hard. Slowly he removed his hat and passed one hand across his
forehead.
"Man," he ejaculated fervidly to himself, "but that's the longest
hundred yards you've ever traveled, on foot or a-horseback!" And
abruptly, accusingly, to her: "Do you know that I've been months and
years and ages rounding that bend to--to find you a little crumpled-up
heap in the road?"
After all, her unaccountably high spirits may have been only the
natural reaction from the hours of depression through which she had
lately passed. But whatever the reason behind it, Barbara's levity was
a totally spontaneous, deliciously colored thing. She sat and tilted
her head at him in audacious provocation; she assumed as chastened an
expression as she could in the face of her very real relief at the news
of Garry's safety.
"I'm sorry," she murmured humbly. "I'm sorry to--disappoint you. But,
you see, I didn't know----"
She laughed at him. Her lips curled, petal-like, in a gurgling peal of
enjoyment at his shame-faced grin.
Pages:
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178