He swept her into his arms with a tender forcefulness. “That I love her. Elenore! Elenore!”
The full red lips that his own found, breathlessly, were mysteriously, maddeningly sweet. And those deep blue eyes—what marvelous things they confessed to him!
“The dear little bungalow!” he whispered. “But we needn’t wait for it, Elenore. Marry me soon, and we’ll build it afterward.”
She laughed deliciously.
The sound of steps in the hall came to them, and Hastings drew her to the vantage ground of a corner as Mr. Wade and the Carringtons, père et fils, came in view outside the windows to seat themselves comfortably in the big veranda chairs.
“And,” said Mr. Wade, in high good humor, and evidently continuing a conversation begun at the table, “it shouldn’t be difficult for you and your son-in-law to arrange the management of the two mines amicably between you.”
“Aren’t you getting on rather rapidly?” John Carrington demanded, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Not as rapidly as Laurence would like to, I’ll wager,” Mr. Wade said, with confidence.
Then he polished his eyeglasses with his handkerchief. “I have always had a great admiration for the heroines of Shakespeare—Rosalind, in particular,” he said, with a hint of pedantic precision; “but I consider Miss Elenore more charming still.”
“My idea, exactly,” murmured Hastings.