The easy impudence, the loving insolence, the large, feudal lord air of proprietorship, of the man who has just come into possession of the one woman is sometimes a development beyond belief. Reprehensible, certainly.
Stafford had not slept much. All night he had lain awake, trying to realize what it was that had come to him, the beneficence of Providence, the magnitude of what earth has sometimes to give. It was only with dawn that he slept at all, and his dreams were good. As for her, the Far Away Lady, who shall tell what thoughts or dreams were hers?
He came into the dining car that morning, refreshed and exalted, and overlooking and sweeping as an eagle in his first morning swing from his eyrie. He was splendidly intolerable, this triumphant lover who had recovered his equipoise and was himself of the years ago. Any lofty simile would do for him. He came stalking in like a king to a coronation, with but one redeeming feature to the look upon his face, an expression which resembled gratitude. And who was it that entered the car a moment or two after he had seated himself at the breakfast table? Could this flush-faced, slender creature, bright and almost challenging of eye, be the Far Away Lady, she of the sad and dreamy look! It was she, certainly. Dr. Love, you are a wonder! All the other physicians of the world, all the health resorts of the world, can neither advise nor have effect toward swift recuperation in comparison with you unhampered! They are but as vapors, or as the things which are not.
The greetings of the morning were exchanged—it was nearly noon, by the way, for they had lain long at Denver—the breakfast was ordered and then he leaned back and looked in her face, smilingly: "Where shall we live?" he asked blandly, as if it were but a resumed conversation. "Have you fallen in love with lotus-eating in Southern California, or are there other regions, still?"
Did my lady lately, so "sober, steadfast and demure," blanche or start at this daring, overbearing opening? Not she. She may have blushed a little, but well she knew the ways of her whimsical, perplexing lover. Her eyes flashed back at his with the tender, quizzical look in them and she laughed. Then a soberer expression came, and she spoke earnestly and thoughtfully:
"I have heard homesick people, living among the oranges, speak longingly of a place they called 'God's country.' I think we should make our home somewhere in 'God's country,' do you not?"
"Yes, dear," he exclaimed delightedly, "but where and what is 'God's country?' We hear about it, but its boundaries seem undefined. I take it that each individual has his or her ideal. I am confident, though, that ours are the same. Is not that so?"
"To me," she spoke bravely, "'God's country' is, first of all, where you are, and," she added reverently, "of course God is everywhere."
"Bless you," he said, "but, go on. Let us consider what we two think the essentials for our own 'God's country.'"
"It must be a country where the grass grows, where sod, turf, close-woven grass, cover the ground," she answered promptly. "The raw, unkempt plains and hills of the arid regions are not for us, nor is the stormless life of the land of oranges and grapes. We want, first of all, the good green sod, and, next, trees, waving, luxuriant elms and oaks and ash and beech and all their kindred, and their vines as well, wild grapes and ivy and bitter-sweet."