After Terry had read the note aloud Deane added her pleas to his that Susan and Ellis should share the car with them. But they would have none of it. When Susan wavered, Ellis became emphatic.
So the two rode through the tropic night alone, that night and during the glorious evenings that followed for a week. They came to know every village along the ribboned roads, each grove of tall palms, each stretch of beach where smooth highways ran along the coast. She loved the island empire.
They talked as such do talk. The third night, as they rolled through the moonlight down the San Ramon road, he found courage to broach the one subject he had hesitated to mention.
"The Governor wants me to stay a year," he faltered. "A year up in the Hills."
She had expected it, was ready. She looked full up at him, and in the soft light her lovely face shone with a strange beauty that humbled him.
"Dick, 'and thy people shall be my people.'"
They planned their house in the Hills, bought and stored picturesque odds and ends of furniture and fittings; brasses, embroideries, carved teak: and he outlined their honeymoon, which was to be a three-months' ramble through Japan, the magic lover's land. They arranged no exact itinerary, just a wandering through Miajima, Kyoto, Nikko,—a score of out of the way places.
The mornings he spent with the enthusiastic Governor, planning, discussing. Two tons of supplies went out to the Major the fourth day.
"I put in an assortment of presents for him to give to the Hillmen," the Governor told him. "And plenty of matches—you say they went wild over those he packed up. They will be rich!"