“Did you? I can’t imagine your unbending that far.”
“Oh, I take everybody as a matter of course, knocking about. I accepted the drink and stood him another. After that I went to sleep to get rid of him. Of course he wanted to talk—that is to say, monologue.”
“Let us sit down here.”
They had left the avenue, and crossed a side garden. There were two rustic chairs under a great oak. They took them, and faced each other.
“Did you kill your grizzly?”
“No; not one has been heard of in the neighbourhood of San Luis Obispo for three years. I never was so disappointed in my life. Now, I suppose, there is no hope; it is too much to ask of men who have been burnt out to bother about grizzlies. My other friends—the ones I’ve been with for the last two years—didn’t come further West than Montana.”
Lee had on a white summer frock, girdled with a ribbon the colour of her eyes. Her black hair was coiled loosely. She was fully aware that she looked very lovely.
“You are the only man living that would look for a grizzly first and for me after,” she said with a certain arching of her brows and pouting of her lips ... “Cecil, you always could stare harder than any one I ever knew.”
“I believe I’ve thought quite as much about you as the grizzly.”
“Thanks!”