Forsyth took his hat. At the door he paused and turned, but she was already ostensibly interested in a magazine. He went out into the night.
The week was a busy one with Dave, and he had no opportunity to visit the Duncans. Friday Edith called him on the telephone. She asked an inconsequential question about something which had appeared in the paper, and from that the talk drifted on until it turned on the point of their expedition of the previous Sunday. Dave never could account quite clearly how it happened, but when he hung up the receiver he knew he had asked her to ride with him again on Sunday, and she had accepted. He had ridden with her before, of course, but he had never asked her before. He had been a sort of honoured employee, whose business it was to comply with her wishes. But this time she would ride at his request. He felt that a subtle change had come over their relationship.
He was at the Duncan house earlier than usual Sunday afternoon, but not too early for Edith. She was dressed for the occasion; she seemed more fetching than he had ever seen her. There was the blush of health—or was it altogether the blush of health?—on her cheeks, and a light in her eyes such as he had seen more than once on those last rides with Reenie Hardy. And across her saddle she threw a brown sweater.
She led the way over the path followed the Sunday before until again they sat by the rushing water. Dave had again been filled with a sense of Reenie Hardy, and his conversation was disjointed and uninteresting. She tried unsuccessfully to draw him out with questions about himself; then took the more astute tack of speaking of her own past life. It had begun in an eastern city, ever so many years ago.
Chivalry could not allow that to pass. "Oh, not so very many," said Dave.
"How many?" she teased. "Guess."
He looked judicially on her bright face; it was a good face to look upon. Perhaps his eyes said as much.
"Nineteen," he hazarded.
"Oh, more than that."
"Twenty-one?"