After a silence Rita said carelessly:
"I'll go with you if you like."
"You! Out there!"
"I said so."
"To Arizona! You wouldn't stand for it!"
"John Burleson!" she said impatiently, "I've told you once that I'd go with you if you need a model! Don't you suppose I know what I am saying?"
He lay placidly staring at her, the heavy book open across his chest.
Presently he coughed and Rita sprang up and removed the book.
"You'd go with me to Arizona," he repeated, as though to himself—"just to pose for me…. That's very kind of you, Rita. It's thoroughly nice of you. But you couldn't stand it. You'd find it too cruelly stupid out there alone—entirely isolated in some funny town. I couldn't ask it of you—"
"You haven't. I've asked it—of you."
But he only began to grumble and fret again, thrashing about restlessly on the lounge; and the tall young girl watched him out of lowered eyes, silent, serious, the lamplight edging her hair with a halo of ruddy gold.