"I've thought of it all winter, days and nights as well; but I'd like another day—" He watched her longingly as she went beyond the firelight.
"Not a day to think about it," he called softly—"a day to forget."
They made it a day of forgetting, as he had said. In the morning they planned to ride, and their spirits were such as they rode off that Ben was moved to regard them knowingly, as one who had taken a fling at life in his time.
The day long they rode or rambled, talking of all but obvious things—making it, indeed, a day of forgetting and a day to remember. Deep in the woman's heart stirred an instinct of primal coquetry, an impulse to wield her charm upon him, to make the woman prevail over the man, beating all reason down, blindly, madly. And she yielded to this, watching its effect on him, divining the power of her freshened beauty each time she compelled his eyes. Instinctively she would have had him say, "I give up. I can't go. Let me stay—stay by you!" The natural woman in her fought for that. But reason reigned above the conflict. She knew he would not surrender and knew she would not have him surrender. Still she could not resist that impulse to enchain him, and exulted each time she made him tremble at their nearness.
Not until night had come did the imminence of his going seem to lie upon them. But then it lay with a weight. Together they left the camp and felt a way over the darkened trail to the cabin. Ewing had spoken of packing he must do, of matters in which she might help him.
But when they were in the studio, and he had started a great blaze in the fireplace he sat before it with her, silent. She spoke at length of the packing.
"There's none to do," he answered. "I'm taking scarcely anything—only what I can carry back of the saddle."
Her blood leaped with a quick hope.
"Then you're not going for long—you will come back—" But he only shook his head.
"I can't expect to come back." He looked at her with a sudden lighting of his eyes. "Come near to me this once." He moved a stool in front of him. "Sit here, this once."