She made no reply.
“It was you who said that the fulfilment is no more disgraceful than the desire.”
At that moment she hated him for his masculine obtuseness.
She gave Sundown’s head a jerk. “I’m glad you’re going to Japan,” she said, and dug her heels into the horse’s sides. A moment later she was lost to view in a cloud of dust.
Like some parched and hungry wanderer who had dreamt of orchards, only to wake up under a bruising hail of apples and pears that startled him into forgetfulness of his thirst, Dare gasped. “Already!” It was an ominously precipitate reminder of his theory that they were each leaders, that neither would be content to subordinate his individuality to the other’s.
His mind bit and gnawed at the baffling knot in a tangle which a few moments since seemed to have yielded for good and all. As a psychologist he was somewhat too clever, and was capable of overlooking a factor that might have leapt to the mind of a kitchen-maid.
He took a trail that served as a short-cut to the ridge, and caught up with Louise on the new road that branched off towards the Castle. She turned in her saddle, and patted Sundown’s flank. “Slowpoke!” she flung back at him, teasingly, but already relentingly. Men were such helpless, clumsy, cruel, selfish, amiable babies.
“Been thinking,” Dare explained.
“To any purpose?”
“To excellent but piteously sad purpose. I’ve been breaking to my unhappy ego the meaning of your parting shot.”