"You are rude, John Aldous! You must not stare at me like that!"
And as she spoke the rebellious colour was still in her face, in spite of the tantalizing curve of her red lips and the sparkle in her eyes.
"I can't help it," he pleaded. "You are—glorious!"
During the next hour, and while they were at supper, he could see that she was purposely avoiding his eyes, and that she spoke oftener to Paul Blackton than she did to him, apparently taking the keenest interest in his friend's enthusiastic descriptions of the mighty work along the line of steel. And as pretty Peggy Blackton never seemed quite so happy as when listening to her husband, he was forced to content himself by looking at Joanne most of the time, without once receiving her smile.
The sun was just falling behind the western mountains when Peggy and Joanne, hurried most incontinently by Blackton, who had looked at his watch, left the table to prepare themselves for the big event of the evening.
"I want to get you there before dusk," he explained. "So please hurry!"
They were back in five minutes. Joanne had slipped on a long gray coat, and with a veil that trailed a yard down her back she had covered her head. Not a curl or a tress of her hair had she left out of its filmy prison, and there was a mischievous gleam of triumph in her eyes when she looked at Aldous.
A moment later, when they went ahead of Blackton and his wife to where the buckboard was waiting for them, he said:
"You put on that veil to punish me, Ladygray?"
"It is a pretty veil," said she.