“Jeanne!” This time the glad cry fairly echoed over the mountain. In a bound he was beside her. He took her face between his hands.
“You adorable torturer!” he cried. “Why did you give me that terrible minute?”
“Because,” she murmured, “you kept me—waiting so long till you made your strike! Did you think that mattered?”
“Good Lord!” The exclamation came forth on a long sigh of relief and happiness. “Oh, Jeanne, why didn’t I have enough sense to refuse to take your answer that last time!”
“Why didn’t you!” she breathed. “It would have been just as well.” There was a little gleam deep in the blue eyes beneath his. “You are so—so stubborn, Rand, that I knew as soon as you came here it was useless for me to resist.”
He drew her closer and gently tilted back the blushing face until the tender sweetness of the red lips lay defenseless before him.
And only the evening star, peeping down from the deepening blue of the twilighted sky, saw what he did then!
(The end.)