Lloyd was riding beside Phil a little in advance of the others. "It was the very nicest picnic I evah went to, Phil," she said, "and it's the loveliest memory that I'll have to take home with me of this visit to Arizona."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it," he answered, taking off his hat, and riding along beside her bareheaded in the moonlight. How big and handsome he looked, she thought, sitting up so erect in his saddle, with his eyes smiling down into hers.
"I don't want you ever to forget—" he hesitated an instant, then added in a lower tone, "Arizona."
The sweet odours of the night came blowing up from every direction, the ethereal fragrance of the mistletoe bloom, the heavy perfume of the orange-blossoms hanging white in distant orchards. Behind them the picnickers began to sing again, "Roll along, silver moon, guide the traveller on his way."
Lloyd looked around for Joyce. She was riding far in the rear of the caravan, beside the carriage where Mrs. Lee led the chorus. Presently the old tune changed, and some one started the Bedouin love-song, "From the desert I come to thee."
Looking down at her again with smiling eyes, Phil took up the words, sending them rolling out on the night in a voice that thrilled her with its sweetness, as they rode on side by side across moonlighted desert:
"Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!"