"I—I hope so."
"And when I was going with Peggy I wouldn't have traded a quiet little walk with her—like this you're suggesting—for a front seat look at a blow-up of the whole Rocky Mountain system!"
"And you won't forget to tell Mrs. Blackton that we may not return by four o'clock?"
"I will not. And"—Blackton puffed hard at his pipe—"and, John—the Tête Jaune preacher is our nearest neighbour," he finished.
From then until dinner time John Aldous lived in an atmosphere that was not quite real, but a little like a dream. His hopes and his happiness were at their highest. He knew that Joanne would go walking with him that afternoon, and in spite of his most serious efforts to argue to the contrary he could not keep down the feeling that the event would mean a great deal for him. Almost feverishly he interested himself in Paul Blackton's work. When they returned to the bungalow, a little before noon, he went to his room, shaved himself, and in other ways prepared for dinner.
Joanne and the Blacktons were waiting when he came down.
His first look at Joanne assured him. She was dressed in a soft gray walking-suit. Never had the preparation of a dinner seemed so slow to him, and a dozen times he found himself inwardly swearing at Tom, the Chinese cook. It was one o'clock before they sat down at the table and it was two o'clock when they arose. It was a quarter after two when Joanne and he left the bungalow.
"Shall we wander up on the mountain?" he asked. "It would be fine to look down upon the explosion."
"I have noticed that in some things you are very observant," said Joanne, ignoring his question. "In the matter of curls, for instance, you are unapproachable; in others you are—quite blind, John Aldous!"
"What do you mean?" he asked, bewildered.