"What are they for?"
"I thought you might put them on—the slip over your dress—and you wouldn't look quite so—so out of place—if anybody should see you."
"What a fine idea!" cried Susan, shaking out the slip delightedly.
He was spreading the supper on the tablecloth. He carved one of the chickens, opened the jelly, placed the bread and vegetables and butter. "Now!" he cried. "Let's get busy."
And he set her an example she was not slow to follow. The sun had slipped down behind the hills of the northwest horizon. The birds were tuning for their evening song. A breeze sprang up and coquetted with the strays of her wavy dark hair. And they sat cross-legged on the grass on opposite sides of the tablecloth and joked and laughed and ate, and ate and laughed and joked until the stars began to appear in the vast paling opal of the sky. They had chosen the center of the grassy platform for their banquet; thus, from where they sat only the tops of trees and the sky were to be seen. And after they had finished she leaned on her elbow and listened while he, smoking his cigarette, told her of his life as a newspaper man in Cincinnati. The twilight faded into dusk, the dusk into a scarlet darkness.
"When the moon comes up we'll start," said he. "You can ride behind me on the horse part of the way, anyhow."
The shadow of the parting, the ending of this happiness, fell upon her. How lonely it would be when he was gone! "I haven't told you my name," she said.
"I've told you mine Roderick Spenser—with an s, not a c."
"I remember," said she. "I'll never forget. . . . Mine's Susan Lenox."
"What was it—before——" He halted.