They went round the house along the drive to the rather dilapidated stables outside of which Roger had tied his horse. It was a beautiful animal that whinnied and pawed the ground as they came up to it. The moon, coming up over the pines, caught its quivering muscles and put a sheen on them. Dane drew down its impatient head and rubbed his cheek against the satin of its sensitive skin. It nosed him back in a friendly fashion. Then he looked up admiringly at Roger, who swung easily into the saddle, and who was a superb figure on his big horse. Dane walked along by him to open the gate.
“I’ll go down to the tent in a day or two,” he said. “I may stay down there while the weather’s good.”
“All right. Good-night.”
“So long, old man. See you soon. Don’t forget about your committee.”
“No fear.” And in a moment Roger’s horse was leaping for Dargaville.
Dane lingered by his gate, staring into the forest that rose steeply between him and the western sky. It was virgin bush, practically untouched, with Kauri saplings further up sending slim pointers impertinently at the very stars. His one grievance against this range was that it shut him off from the sunsets. He had always dreamed of a place where he could lie in a hammock and see the sun come up on one side of him and go down on the other. But it seemed that that was one of the impossible things he had clamoured for.
He thought of Roger as he walked back, and was amused to think that he had been attracted by Valerie Carr. And yet there was nothing unusual about it. He got a picture of Valerie as she had risen out of her chair in the office to face him. He had not thought of her since, even though at the time he had felt her charging vitality.
