“I began it, Major King? It’s too early in the morning for a joke!”
“You were wilful and contrary; you would speak to the fellow that day.”
“Oh!” deprecatingly.
“Never mind it, though. Wilfulness doesn’t become either of us, Frances. I’ve tried my turn at it tonight, and it has left me cold.”
“Poor man!” said she, in low voice, like a sigh. Perhaps it was not all for Major King; perhaps not all assumed.
“Let’s not quarrel, Frances.”
“Not now, I’m too tired for a real good one. Leave it for tomorrow.”
He rode on in silence, not sure, maybe, how much of it she meant. Covertly she looked at him now and then, thinking better of him for his ingenuous confession of failure to warm himself at little Nola Chadron’s heart-flame. She extended her hand.
“Forgive me, Major King,” she said, very softly, not far removed, indeed, from tenderness.
For a little while Major King left his horse to keep the road its own way, his cavalry hands quite regardless of manuals, regulations, and military airs. Both of them were enfolding her one. He might have held it until they reached the post, but that she drew it away.