The shadow of constraint was fast slipping from them both.
"You know you enjoy it," he insisted, laughing naturally.
"No, I don't enjoy it at all," she retorted indignantly. "I'll not taste another until you are ready to do your part.... I've forgotten, Garry; did the serpent eat the fruit he recommended?"
"He was too wise, not being acclimated in Eden."
She turned in her saddle, laughing, and sat looking down at him—then, more gravely, at her ungloved hand which he still retained in both of his.
Silence fell, and found them ready for it.
For a long while they said nothing; she slipped one leg over the pommel and sat sideways, elbow on knee, chin propped in her gloved hand. At times her eyes wandered over the sunny clearing, but always reverted to him where he stood leaning against her stirrup and looking up at her as though he never could look enough.
The faint, fresh perfume of China-berry was in the air, delicately persistent amid the heavy odours from tufts of orange flowers clinging to worn-out trees of the abandoned grove.
"Your own fragrance," he said.
She looked down at him, dreamily. He bent and touched with his face the hand he held imprisoned.