"Good-by," he now said. "The caravan"—his tone was half-jesting, half-serious—"has been spending the heat and dust of the day on the oasis. It makes night journeys only. It must push on."
"Night journeys only," repeated Pauline. "That sounds gloomy."
"But there are the stars—and the moon."
She laughed. "And other oases ahead. Good-by—and thank you!"
The boy, close to his mother and facing Scarborough, was looking from her to him and back again—curiously, it almost seemed suspiciously. Both noticed it; both flushed slightly. Scarborough shook hands with her, bowed to the little boy with a formality and constraint that might have seemed ludicrous to an onlooker. He went toward his horse; Gardiner and his mother took the course at right angles across the field in the direction in which the towers of the Eyrie could be seen above the tree-tops. Suddenly the boy said, as if it were the conclusion of a long internal argument: "I like Mr. Scarborough."
"Why not?" asked his mother, amused.
"I—I don't know," replied the boy. "Anyhow, I like him. I wish he'd come and stay with us and Aunt Gladys."
Gladys! The reminder made her uncomfortable, made her feel that she ought to be remorseful. But she hastened on to defend herself. What reason had she to believe that Gladys cared for him, except as she always cared for difficult conquest? Hadn't Gladys again and again gone out of her way to explain that she wasn't in love with him? Hadn't she said, only two days before: "I don't believe I could fall in love with any man. Certainly I couldn't unless he had made it very clear to me that he was in love with me."
Pauline had latterly been suspecting that these elaborations of superfluous protestation were Gladys' efforts to curtain herself. Now she dwelt upon them with eager pleasure, and assured and reassured herself that she had been supersensitive and that Gladys had really been frank and truthful with her.