She was alone in the heart of a snow-covered world, but she was growing content to be alone. She looked up at his white, set face with wide and fearless eyes, while the lure of unexplored and unseen ice invited them all around, and the gray and brooding sky shut them in closer and closer.
"Neil," she said softly, not caring now whether he answered or heard, "I wish we needn't ever go back. I love to-day."
Not long after this Judith and Neil went snow-shoeing one Saturday afternoon by special appointment, an epoch-making event for them. Judith did not often walk with him or take him driving when the sleigh was entrusted to her. She was not often seen with him. With quartette practice and committee work for the dramatic club and other official pretexts for the time they spent together, Willard was not jealous yet, though the winter was almost over, and the treasury of dreams was filling fast.
But this time she made an engagement with Neil as openly as if he were Willard, while Natalie listened jealously. She started with him openly from the front door, with her mother's disapproving eyes upon them from the library window, and Neil proudly carrying her snowshoes, all unconscious of the critical eyes. The afternoon began well, but no afternoon with Neil could be counted upon to go as it began. Two hours later, when they emerged from the Everard woods into the Colonel's snow-covered rose garden, they had quarrelled about half a dozen unrelated subjects, all equally unimportant in themselves, but suddenly important to Neil, who now found further matter for debate.
"What did you bring me in here for?"
"Didn't you know I was?"
"How should I know? I'm no friend of Everard's. I don't know my way through his grounds."
"What makes you call him Everard, without any Colonel or Mr.? It sounds so—common."
"It's good enough for me. Here, I don't want to go near his house. I hate the sight of it."
"But you can't go back by the path. It's too broken up." Judith plunged into the dismantled rose arbour. "Come on, if you don't want to see the house, take my hand and shut your eyes."