"Not the right kind of a fellow for the right kind of a mother," replied Charley, lifting Roger's hand against her cheek. "The price we pay for any kind of love is pain."
"I hope when yours and my time comes to go we can go together," said Roger, "and that we won't have to start until our work is done. Queer how life's values shift. When I came down here, the thing I wanted most in life was to make a success of heat engineering. I thought it was impossible for me to reach an equal degree of desire about anything else. And now, while I want just as much as ever to go on with my profession, successfully, I want a thousand times more to be your husband and to be the right kind of a husband. I never have pipe-dreamed much about marriage, though I've done my share of flirting in my day. But for the first time in my life I realize that Bobby Burns knew what human life is in its innermost essence when he said:
"'To make a happy fireside clime for wean and wife,
That's the true purpose and sublime, of human life!'"
Charley did not speak but she turned and looked into Roger's blue eyes with her own bespeaking a depth of feeling that was beyond words. Roger, looking at the splendid brow above the brown eyes, kissed it reverently and then gazing at the beautiful curving mouth, he crushed his lips to Charley's. Then again they sat watching the bees in the alfalfa.
Charley noted before Roger the sound of hoof beats and looking round, beheld Hackett's two seated buckboard crawling slowly toward them.
"Who on earth now!" exclaimed Roger. "It can't be—yes, by Jove it is Dean Erskine—and—and Mamma and Papa Wolf! Oh, Elsa and Dick are going to have real trouble now!"
They hurried round to the corral, and shouted to the others so that the whole ranch was present to welcome the travelers. Ernest was first, lifting his mother bodily to the ground and kissing her a dozen times before Elsa had a chance.
"Guess I can pull off a surprise party when I try!" he shouted. "Here, Papa, this is Charley. Don't you remember the little roly-poly who used to play in the swimming pool? And Dick—who tried to boss us."
"Come up to the house! I know you're half dead," said Charley, leading the way as she spoke.
"I don't want to go into any house till I've seen the Plant," exclaimed Dean Erskine, wiping the sand from his face.