It was toward the end of the meal, that, looking at the opposite wall, her glance was caught by a large clock to which she drew her father’s attention:
“Half-past nine! How fashionable we are! And when are you going to get us up to Antelope, Mr. McVeigh?”
McVeigh studied the clock ponderingly as he felt in his breast pocket for his toothpick.
“Well,” he said, “if we leave here at ten and make good time the hull way—it’s up hill pretty much without a break—I’ll get you there about midnight.”
She made a little grimace.
“And it will be much colder, won’t it?”
“Colder ’n’ colder. You’ll be goin’ higher with every step. Antelope’s on the slope of the Sierra, and you can’t expect to be warm up there in the end of January.”
“If you hadn’t wanted to come,” said her father, “you’d have been just about getting ready for Mrs. Ryan’s ball. Isn’t this about the magic hour when you begin to lay on the first layer of war-paint?”
The girl looked at the clock, nodding with a faint, reminiscent smile.
“Just about,” she said. “I’d have been probably looking at my dress laid out on the bed and saying to myself, ‘Now I wonder if it’s worth while getting into that thing and having all the bother of going to this ball.’ On the evenings when I go out, there’s always a stage when that happens.”