Out there, beyond, swallowed up in that dear black smudge she had seen from the balcony her soul would wave its Stars and Stripes of freedom and move grandly in the palpitant sunlight upon the yellow linoleum of the mighty desert!
And she would have for company kickin’, bitin’ horses and daredevil men, magnificent, virile, strenuous nomads of the wild silences and the silver moons!
Only under no circumstances were they—any one of them—to be allowed to go too far!
Camaraderie—yes, in her boyish way she would offer them that. But beyond that——
“Remember, Verbie,” she told herself. “As regards such bally things you are an icicle—an icicle.”
She shivered.
“An icicle!”
She drew the covers swiftly up to her chin—up to the loose, red curls that brother Tawdry so loved to club about her ears.