“If you’re sure,” said Zelda, “we’ll risk it.”
The girls gathered up their light wraps and they all set off down the driveway.
“If you will be good, Miss Dameron, you may feed one of Mr. Balcomb’s chocolates to my charger,” said Pollock, gravely.
“Unkind, most unkind! I’ll do nothing of the sort.”
When a man is in love, he becomes a master of harmless deceit and subterfuge. Morris Leighton had sought Zelda Dameron to-night with a great hope in his heart. He did not intend to miss a chance to talk to her alone, if he could help it. He had taken her wrap from her, and purposely dropped it; and he seemed to have difficulty in finding it, although it was a white thing that one could not miss in the moonlight, unless one were blind. But Zelda paused when they reached Pollock’s horse, which whinnied and put out its nose to her in a friendly way.
“He used to bite at me when I first knew him; but he’s getting quite friendly,” said Zelda; and she patted the animal’s pretty neck and bent and took the forefoot that he raised for a hand-shake. Leighton’s spirit sank at the suggestion of an apparent comradeship between Pollock and Zelda. She was on good terms with his horse even; and Morris Leighton had no horse! Army men always delighted women; a civilian really had little chance against a soldier. But Morris’s spirit rose as Pollock and Olive walked away together.
“It’s too bad that Mr. Balcomb hurried away so. He must be a busy man.”
“I suppose he is,” said Leighton.
“You and he are great friends, aren’t you?”
“We have been acquainted a long time,” replied Morris, guardedly.