Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/256

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

thing she wanted from her husband, as if he had been a heartless ogre.

"We take the railroad to a station in the Canadian Rockies that Sir Brian knows about," Fay bubbled on; "and from there we start on horseback not far, but up—up—up into the wildest possible country, surrounded on every side by the most awful mountains, till at last we come to some broken tablelands, right on the roof of the world, that are famous pasturing places for the sheep. There we make camp beside a stream fed from melting snow, and—and we go after 'em! Won't it be jolly? Oh, won't it?"

And she let go George's hands to clasp her own in a rapture of pleasurable anticipation.

"But—my dear!" George began in a tone slightly expostulating, while he groped for temporizing phrases which would postpone consideration to a moment when he could soften the inevitable disappointment of his decision.

But with that first word—the first look, indeed—his wife thought she saw refusal coming, and in her manner there was an instant change which revealed that all the while it was fear that lay at the bottom of her breathlessly enthusiastic importunings. With a woman's quick instinct to save her pride, she swung her shoulders quickly to bar random glances from below, so