Spring gave way to early summer—and now Steve was able to be on his feet again, so absurdly uncertain of balance at first, however, that she ridiculed him unmercifully one moment, only to rush to him in a panic of solicitude the next. There came long walks, and longer trips in the saddle; came hours of silence that were the more wonderful for want of words—hours in which, in a hushed voice, she gave him shyly of her plans. But always, too, the interruptions grew more and more frequent and insistent. Fat Joe and McLean, and even Hardwick Elliott, made more and more pressing demands upon his time, until finally he insisted that he could no longer play, shamelessly, the invalid. He must look in upon the works up-river, if only for the moral effect which it would have upon the men. She assented, grudgingly; it would be but a day or two. And then—then he would come back to her.
The next morning, at the moment when Barbara and Steve were mounting their horses, for she wanted to ride with him a little way, Dexter Allison chose to disclose something which had been but lately in the process of preparation. He joined them at the edge of the lawn, before the white-columned house on the hill.
"Easing back into harness, I understand," he began, not quite comfortably, however, for he was aware of a gleam of disapproval in his daughter's eyes, at this interruption. "Well, there's no great rush, but it's wise, no doubt, to see that things don't lag." He hesitated, and shifted heavily to the other foot. "We'll want to start through to the border by fall, I suppose?"
"We'll be ready," Steve had to laugh at his lack of ease.
"No doubt—no doubt!" Again Dexter hesitated, momentarily. And then there came to the surface that proneness to accept men for what they were, in a man's world, which had long before convinced Caleb Hunter of Allison's inherent bigness.
"Elliott resigned the Presidency of the East Coast Company last night." The statement was brief to actual crispness. "I merely tell you this so that you can begin to lay tentative plans accordingly. Because, in view of the immediate need of filling that vacancy, I feel sure that there will be too many demands upon your time, here at the Morrison office, for you to plan on much field work for yourself in the future."
To Barbara, at the beginning, the speech seemed merely another of her father's rather involved, entirely labored attempts at the facetious. But when she saw the blood steal up and stain Stephen O'Mara's face, she realized that it was the very sort of a suggestion from which, on her lips, he had turned roughly away. Coming from the lips of her father, Steve accepted gravely, with a matching briefness that could not hide a surge of triumph. A month before Barbara would have been unable to understand why there was any difference, simply because the suggestion came from another. Now, when it could no longer make or mar her happiness, she understood very well indeed.
She rode with him that day until he told her that it was time for her to turn back. With Ragtime standing quiet, she laid her face against his, and complained that he had promised her she should never be allowed to go more than arms' length away from him, once she was his.
"This is the last time," he told her, in a voice vibrant and low. "This is the last time—for you and me."
He held her closer for a moment.