“Sure,” rejoined Orde, “but it's easy driving; and if that crew of his hasn't much to do, perhaps he'll lay most of them off here at Redding.”
Denning looked at his principal for a moment, then a slow grin overspread his face. Without comment he turned back to camp, and Orde took up his reins.
XXV
“Oh, I'm so GLAD to get you back!” cried Carroll over and over again, as she clung to him. “I don't live while you're away. And every drop of rain that patters on the roof chills my heart, because I think of it as chilling you; and every creak of this old house at night brings me up broad awake, because I hear in it the crash of those cruel great timbers. Oh, oh, OH! I'm so glad to get you! You're the light of my life; you're my whole life itself!”—she smiled at him from her perch on his knee—“I'm silly, am I not?” she said. “Dear heart, don't leave me again.”
“I've got to support an extravagant wife, you know,” Orde reminded her gravely.
“I know, of course,” she breathed, bending lightly to him. “You have your work in the world to do, and I would not have it otherwise. It is great work—wonderful work—I've been asking questions.”
Orde laughed.
“It's work, just like any other. And it's hard work,” said he.
She shook her head at him slowly, a mysterious smile on her lips. Without explaining her thought, she slipped from his knee and glided across to the tall golden harp, which had been brought from Monrovia. The light and diaphanous silk of her loose peignoir floated about her, defining the maturing grace of her figure. Abruptly she struck a great crashing chord.