She was not
angry with him, he knew. Her face was troubled. He gazed at her as they
rode and his heart yearned for her tenderly. Life had suddenly assumed a
tensity that silenced them. The little lizards of the stones scurried
away from either side of the road. One after another, with sprightly
steps, a covey of mountain quail crossed the road before them, leaving
little starlike tracks in the dust. Though homeward bound the ponies
plodded with lowered heads. Moonstone Canon, always wonderful in its
wild, rugged beauty, seemed as a place of dreams, only real as it echoed
the tread of the ponies. The canon stream chattered, murmured, quarreled
round a rock-strewn bend, laughed at itself, and passed, singing a
cool-voiced melody.
They rode through a vale of enchantment, only known to Youth and Love.
Her gray eyes were misty and troubled. His eyes were heavy with
unuttered longing. His heart pounded until it almost choked him. He bit
his lips that he might keep silent.
The glint of the slanting sunlight on her hair, the turn of her wrist as
she held the reins, her apparent unconsciousness of all outward things
enthralled him. A spell hung round him like a mist, blinding and
baffling all clearer thought.
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