It might have been the first time over again, except that my mental attitude toward her had changed a lot.
"That's better; I can see now what you're trying to draw," I said, looking down over her shoulder—not at the sketch; it might have been a sea view, for all I knew—but at the pink curve of her cheek, which was growing pinker while I looked.
She did not glance up, or even start; so she must have known, all along, that I was headed her way. She went on making a lot of marks that didn't seem to fit anywhere, and that seemed to me a bit wobbly and uncertain. I caught just the least hint of a smile twitching the corner of her mouth—I wanted awfully to kiss it!
"Yes? I believe I have at last got everything—King's Highway—in the proper perspective and the proper proportion," she said, stumbling a bit over the alliteration—and no wonder. It was a sentence to stampede cattle; but I didn't stampede. I wanted, more than ever, to kiss—but I won't be like Barney, if I can help it.
"It's too far off—too unattainable," I criticized—meaning something more than her sketch of the pass. "And it's too narrow. If a fellow rode in there he would have to go straight on through; there wouldn't be a chance to turn back."
"Ergo, a fellow shouldn't ride in," she retorted, with a composure positively wicked, considering my feelings. "Though it does seem that a fellow rather enjoys going straight on through, regardless of anything; promises, for instance."
That was the gauntlet I'd been hoping for. From the minute I first saw her there it flashed upon me that she was astonished and indignant that night when she saw Frosty and me come charging through the pass, after me telling her I wouldn't do it any more. It looked to me like I'd have to square myself, so I was glad enough of the chance.
"Sometimes a fellow has to do things regardless of—promises," I explained. "Sometimes it's a matter of life and death. If a fellow's father, for instance—"
"Oh, I know; Edith told me all about it." Her tone was curious, and while it did not encourage further explanations or apologies, it also lacked absolution of the offense I had committed.
I sat down in the grass, half-facing her to better my chance of a look into her eyes. I was consumed by a desire to know if they still had the power to send crimply waves all over me. For the rest, she was prettier even than I remembered her to be, and I could fairly see what little sense or composure I had left slide away from me. I looked at her fatuously, and she looked speculatively at a sharp ridge of the divide as if that sketch were the only thing around there that could possibly interest her.