e ought to be good friends."

"Will you tell me one thing, Miss Brock--are you engaged?"

"I don't think you should ask, Mr. Glover. But I am not
engaged--unless that in a sense I am," she added, doubtfully.

"What sense, please?"

"That I have given no answer. Are you still complaining of the cold,
Aunt Jane?" she cried, in desperation, turning toward Mrs. Whitney. "I
find it quite warm over here. Mr. Glover and I are still watching the
freight train. Come over, do."

Going back, Glover rode near to Gertrude, who had grown restless and
imperious. To hunt this queer mountain-lion was recreation, but to
have the mountain-lion hunt her was disquieting.

She complained again of her wounded hand, but refused all suggestions,
and gave him no credit for riding between her and the thorny trees
through the canyon. It was midnight when the party reached the hotel,
and when Gertrude stepped across the parlor to the water-pitcher,
Glover followed. "I must thank you for your thoughtfulness of my
little sister to-night," she was saying.

He was so intent that he forgot to reply.

"May I ask one question?" he said.

"That depends."

"When you make answer may I know what it is?"

"Indeed you may not."

CHAPTER XV

NOVEMBER

They walked back to the parlors. Doctor Lanning and Marie were picking
up the rackets at the ping-pong table. Mrs. Whitney had gone into the
office for the evening mail.

Passing the piano, Gertrude sat down and swung around toward the keys.
Glover took music from the table. Unwilling to admit a trace of the
unusual in the beating of her heart, or in her deeper breathing, she
could not entirely control either; there was something too fascinating
in defying the light that she now knew glowed in the dull eyes at her
side. She avoided looking; enough that the fire was there without
directly exposing her own eyes to it. She drummed with one hand, then
with both, at a gavotte on the rack before her.

Overcome merely at watching her fingers stretch upon the keys he leaned
against the piano.

"Why did you ask me to come up?"

As he muttered the words she picked again and again with her right hand
at a loving little phrase in the gavotte. When it went precisely right
she spoke in the same tone, still caressing the phrase, never looking
up. "Are you sorry you came?"

"No; I'd rather be trod under foot than not be near you."

"May we not be friends without either of us being ma